


This Man Looked Exactly Like Natalie Portman When He Was 13

by eggstasy



Series: cosmoverse [4]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 02:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 40,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6354808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggstasy/pseuds/eggstasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Washington and Tucker sleep together.  It sounds like a lot of drama and Carolina is positive that something will eventually go wrong because they are both themselves, but she’s not concerning herself with any of that.  She says her peace and that’s all.  Washington is a grown man and can handle his own affairs.</p><p>It’s not until he comes to her suggesting she train Caboose that her routine begins to change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Watch Straight Women Touch Another Vagina for the Very First Time

Carolina loves the scouting missions.  She used to hate them.  Plain Jane intel gathering had never been one of her interests, though she was more than capable if the mission called for it.  But Carolina, what she _preferred_ was to get her hands dirty, was damage control, was decimating the enemy if they dared to figure out what she was up to.  She’d never sabotage a mission for the sake of sating that urge, but she’d be lying if she said she was never tempted.

Scouting missions have become something of a respite for her, since the move to Armonia.  Carolina doesn’t like the stillness of the city.  Its people aren’t still, soldiers bustling to and fro every single day but there’s a difference between being _busy_ and being _useful_ and she is very much the former in the city but not so much the latter.  Staying in one place is not her forte.

Washington takes to training the troops pretty well.  He’s strict and he barks orders and it almost makes her laugh, how different he is until she remembers that it’s not really funny considering how he got there.  She watches a few times until it becomes boring, and then she leaves.  Picks up the dangerous missions and leaves.

The armies were more comfortable with Washington, so it only made sense for him to be the Freelancer most present in the city.  Carolina, her strengths lie almost exclusively with Getting Shit Done.  While she’s sure there is Shit to be Got Done in the capital, it’s frankly of not much interest to her when there’s so much she could be doing elsewhere.

_Your inner monologue makes you sound like a jarhead._

“I _am_ a jarhead,” Carolina reminds Church quietly as she waits for the next patrol to pass by, slipping around the corner and into the nearby storage facility.  It’s not something she hates about herself.  She just doesn’t have the mind for logistics planning, research or science.  It’s not her thing.

_Arright well lemme rephrase that then: you sound like a **meat** head._

Carolina makes an annoyed sound and jams a drive into the nearby console, eye on her trackers.  “If you’ve got something you’d like to say to me-”

_Nothing, just that you desperately trying to justify your lone wolf status with ‘I’m so bad at the thinky stuff’ is pretty sad.  Like once or twice is fine, but I feel like I’m watching nothing but fuckin’ reruns in here._

“I’m so sorry my thought process is boring you,” Carolina drawls.  “Are you done yet?”

_Twenty seconds.  Y’know, I shouldn’t be so surprised that Hargrove’s got some seriously good research going on, but I always am.  You know how they reverse-engineered those rifles?  It’s pretty cool.  First they checked the photonic wavelengths of the plasma charges, which looks like it was a pain in the ass considering they couldn’t fire the damn things.  They had to extract-_

“Epsilon, I could not care less.  Literally, I couldn’t.  Stop babbling.”

_Meathead._

“You sure are acting like a nerd for someone who insists he isn’t a nerd.  Are you done yet?”

_Done.  I’m not a nerd.  Let’s get out of here already, meathead._

Carolina doesn’t make a sound on her way out, because while she enjoys damage control she also enjoys the hustle of someone finding out later that they’ve been had.  She maybe trips the alarm on the way out to see everybody scramble in her wake as she disappears, silent and smiling, into the nearby trees.

 

* * *

 

Washington and Tucker sleep together.  It sounds like a lot of drama and Carolina is positive that something will eventually go wrong because they are both themselves, but she’s not concerning herself with any of that.  She says her peace and that’s all.  Washington is a grown man and can handle his own affairs.

It’s not until he comes to her suggesting she train _Caboose_ that her routine begins to change.

She knows he’s running from probably a few things with this move, but his suggestion isn’t without merit.  They all have their specialties, none of which Wash is suited to. Washington is a rifleman who also has a knack for knives, she’s a martial arts specialist and is generally good at everything.

_Wow.  I can practically taste the humility in that statement._

Assigning specialized trainers for the sim troopers might not be a bad idea.  She’s seen what Caboose can do, too; she still remembers how he’d just torn into those robots and tossed them like they were nothing.  She only knew of two other people who could do something like that, and they’re both-

_-don’t._

Right.  “All right,” is what she tells Wash, and she doesn’t miss the relieved slump of his shoulders.  His personal issues with Tucker aside, he’d probably been just as worried about Caboose’s progress.  Which was understandable considering Carolina wasn’t sure if Caboose was actually ever _really_ present in any of his conversations.  Maybe she really should get him analyzed by Dr. Grey before they do this.  A full checkup would be ideal.

“Look,” Wash adds hesitantly, “he’s, he doesn’t respond well to yelling.  Or threats.”

That could be an issue. 

 _I’ll_ _say._  

“Okay, so what _does_ he respond well to?”

Uh oh.  She doesn’t like the way Washington shifts his weight at that.  “Um.  Emotional honesty and affection, mostly.”

That’ll _definitely_ be an issue.  “Yeah,” Church laughs at her shoulder, and into her head, “good luck Carolina.”

 

* * *

 

There’s a lot of paperwork that needs to be done before they can even begin training.  Carolina sends Wash off with an order to tell Caboose the news himself while she starts on the necessary transfer request forms.  Kimball gives her the green light but pulls her into the war room first.  “Have you worked with him in this capacity before?” Kimball asks her worriedly. 

“I’ve taken him with me on a couple missions,” she answers, because she’s getting sick and tired of people giving her that tone of voice that says they’re afraid she’ll either tear him or herself to pieces with this assignment.  Training a single soldier, no matter how difficult they may be, _cannot_ be worth all this anxiety.  It’s stupid.  She’s wrangled in _South_ for god’s sake.

_He’s worse in completely different ways, trust me._

“I’ve worked with him before,” Carolina huffs, in answer to both Kimball and Epsilon.  “He’s not that difficult to talk to.  I don’t know why you and Wash are so worried.”

“He destroyed two Warthogs and the mess hall’s beverage machine within six hours of arriving at my camp,” Kimball says.  “I didn’t mean to question your capabilities as an instructor.  I’m just worried about the consequences of this transfer; I don’t want to upset the balance we’ve got going.  Washington seems to have him more or less controlled.”

Something about the word sits wrong with her.  She can feel it sitting wrong with Epsilon too, by his silence, by the uneasy weight of him at the base of her skull.  “Control isn’t the issue here.”  It’s not as if Carolina can’t sympathize; attempting to maintain the truce when Kimball herself still has reservations of its validity must be taxing.  Explaining to her own troops why they have to respect the people who were only months ago their enemies can’t be easy, and managing the Federation personnel on top of that has taken a noticeable toll on Kimball’s patience.  But that’s what she and Washington are for; to act as go-between neutral parties, to spread their influence and expertise in an effort to unite the two armies because if there’s one thing the two sides can agree on, it’s that they like the Reds and Blues.

Caboose, however problematic he may be, is a part of that.

“I understand your concerns,” Carolina tries again, a little more carefully.  “But I think just trying to run damage control after him isn’t going to work for long.  Troops are resources, and we don’t have the luxury of wasting resources right now.”

Kimball is considering her carefully.  “You won’t get an argument out of me, Carolina.  I’m just asking you, as someone who I hope you can call an ally: is this really about making the most of our resources, or is this something more personal?”

What is _that_ supposed to mean?  Should she be offended right now?  _Search me, I got no idea what she’s getting at._ “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Kimball shakes her head with a sigh, resting her helmet in her palm.  “No- I’m sorry.  Don’t worry about it, I’m just.  Stressed out.”

 _Bullshit that’s all it was._   “It’s fine.  I’d also like to request a full physical and psychological analysis for Caboose before I begin training, if that’s all right.”

Kimball waves a hand.  “Make arrangements with Dr. Grey, I have no problems with it.”

Carolina pauses at the door, feeling a little like she’s missed something vital in the conversation.  She _hates_ that, but maybe that’s what years of working alone gets you.  “If…you need someone to talk to,” she starts awkwardly.

The weary smile is obvious in Kimball’s voice when she says, “Be careful Carolina, I might take you up on that.”

 _Smooth._  

“Shut up Church,” Carolina mutters under her breath as she leaves.

 

* * *

 

_That’s not gonna work._

Carolina pauses in composing her message.  “Excuse me?”

_I mean even if he manages to read it and comprehend it, he’s gonna forget it literally seconds after he does.  It won’t work.  You’ll need to take him there yourself._

“Remind me again,” Carolina asks, finishing the draft anyway and sending it over, “why you’re refusing to help me with the actual lessons?  Seems to me like you’re the resident expert on how to handle him.”

_God, don’t say that.  And don’t tell him you have me._

“I’m not going to lie.”  Carolina bends over to unsnap her greaves from her survival suit.  “Besides, won’t he already know?  You’re with me all the time.”

_Yeah about that.  Doyle asked for some help cleaning up their inventory and requisitions servers, so I’m gonna have to split for a little while._

“What?  _Epsilon-”_

_Relax, it’s just for a few days.  I can come back if there’s a mission, just swing by the war room and pick me up._

What a rotten little shithead, he _planned_ this.  “I can’t believe you’re ducking out on me.  You’re such a coward.”

_Hey, **you** told me that if I didn’t like it, I could just offline.  This is pretty much the same thing._

“It’s _not_ the same thing,” she grumbles, affixing her armor pieces to the dummy.

_What are you complaining about?  It’s not like you can’t handle him without me.  Stop being such a baby._

“ _You’re_ the baby.”  She snaps her towel over her shoulder.  “Offline, I’m showering.”

_Oh come on.  Seriously?_

“Yes seriously, I don’t want to hear your voice for a while.”

_Well fuck you too!_

Epsilon logs off with a huff, a little irritated kickback that makes her flinch and she wonders how she could’ve had such a lapse in judgment that she would willingly implant such a snotty little prima donna directly into her head.

 

* * *

 

When Carolina arrives at Caboose’s quarters at oh-six-hundred, he’s nowhere to be found.  Not only is his door unlocked, but he’s not in his closet, neither in nor under the bed nor any other ludicrous place she can think of where he’d be instead of where he _should_ be.  His armor is still tossed haphazardly in the direction of the armor stand, and his survival suit is crumpled over the back of a chair but there’s no sign of the soldier.

Shit.  She should have asked Church about his sleeping patterns.  Is he an early riser?  He always seemed to be either wide awake or dead asleep when they’d gone on their mission, no in-between, but for the life of her she can’t recall when he would go to bed.  She remembers Wash and Tucker discussing things once, saying he did well with routine but what _is_ his routine?

“Damn you Epsilon,” she says as she stalks out, because it makes her feel better.  That he’s currently not present to defend himself is an additional bonus.

The mess hall doesn’t wield any answers either, but that’s unsurprising.  Breakfast usually isn’t served until seven, giving soldiers ample time to complete their PT before eating.  He _couldn’t_ be engaging in personal training, could he?  No.

Tucker is on the track, but not Caboose.  “You’re looking for Caboose, right?” Tucker calls.  “Yeah he’s not here.  If he’s not at the mess hall then it’s anybody’s guess.  Sometimes he likes to get up early and go on an adventure.”

“An adventure.”  Her tone has been ironed flat.

“His words, not mine.  It’s basically just wandering around and probably breaking shit.”  Tucker shrugs, rubbing his face dry with his shirt.  “Also, your ass looks great in those yoga pants.”

“These are _not_ yoga pants, and don’t say that again or I’ll break your nose.”  Carolina would do it now but she has places to be.  Apparently, _apparently_ she’s going to have to hunt down her trainee.  It’s ridiculous.  The number of people who would line up to train with her must be in the dozens but the one single soldier that actually gets her undivided attention cannot be found.  Moreover, the loudest, _clumsiest_ soldier who likely really is just wandering around cannot be found.

“What the hell is going on?” Carolina shouts into an empty amphitheater.  The acoustics in the building are incredible.  It does nothing to sate her fury.  He can’t _possibly_ have gone too far.  He must be near all the military structures, he wouldn’t wander into the city proper without at least telling someone.  Would he?

She calls Wash.  “Where did he go.”

_Wh- Caboose?  He’s not at the mess hall?_

“I just _checked_ the mess hall.”

_How long ago?_

“Thirty minutes!”

_Check again, he’s usually made his way over there by now.  He likes to wait outside._

She checks the mess hall and finds Caboose crouched just where Wash said he’d be, outside of the closed doors.  “Good morning Agent Carolina,” he sing-songs, like she hadn’t just wasted almost an hour trying to find him.  “I am waiting for the doors to open for the show.”

She stands over him and folds her arms.  “This is the mess hall.”

“What?”  Caboose twists and gapes up at the sign.  “Oh man!  I wondered why there was no music.  And only food.”

“Caboose, did you get the message I sent you?”  His blank stare says it all.  “You have an appointment with Dr. Grey today.  You’re to receive a full physical and- _hey!_ ”  Carolina gives chase when Caboose bolts and crap, he moves pretty fast for someone as big as he is.  Not as fast as _her,_ thank goodness, but still impressively swift. 

She grabs onto his shirt, hooks his ankle with her foot and uses his own forward momentum to flip him head over heels onto his back with a resounding _whud_.  “Do _not_ run when I’m talking to you, do you understand me?  You’re going to the doctor.”

“Please!” he yells, “I will tell you anything!  I don’t even _like_ opera!”

God.  “She isn’t going to _torture_ you, Caboose.  She’s just going to check you out, make sure you’re in fit condition and then talk with you for a bit.”

“She is a scary person!”

“Dr. Grey is-”  Okay, well she _did_ say she wouldn’t lie to him, “All right, yes, she can be scary.  At times.  But she’s just going to examine you.  No torture, no…scariness.  You have my word.”

Caboose eyeballs her suspiciously from the ground.  “But do you _promise?_ ”

“That’s what- yes.  Yes, I promise.”  Now she knows why Wash cuts himself off so often. 

Carolina sticks out her hand to help him up and he grabs the side of her hand like she’s a knight helping up a princess.  A huge, somewhat unshaven, six-six two-hundred-eighty pound princess.  The image is so nonsensical she almost expects a curtsy once he’s on his feet, but instead he just looks at her and grabs her hand between his own, which makes her feel like her fingers are the meat in a sweaty bread sandwich.

“Please do not let her sing to me.  Her voice goes very, very high.”

She hadn’t been _planning_ on staying for the examination, but this is apparently part of it.  Oh boy.  “I won’t let her sing to you.  You’ll be fine.”

 

* * *

 

Epsilon gives her the cold shoulder when she comes by the war room.  The cold shoulder from an AI isn’t that obvious, not even from someone as loud and grating as Church, but Carolina can tell.  She can tell because Epsilon, despite taking the ‘if I didn’t see it I don’t care’ stance on most things that happen, keeps his fingers on the pulse of the city even more closely than she does.  He hates not knowing things, a trait they share, but he actually has both the access and the capacity to _actually_ know almost everything. 

The little fucker _knows_ she’s here.

“Are you serious?” she asks, arms folded, when silence is all that greets her after standing in the war room for nearly twenty seconds.

“Oh, I’m s- can I speak?  Now?  Is it okay if I talk, master?”

“Church,” Carolina sighs like he’s being completely irrational, which he is.  He’s had the entire day to get over whatever hurt feelings he’d had from what barely even counted as a spat.

“I wouldn’t want the sound of my voice to _grate_ on you, that’s the _last_ thing I’d want.  Wouldn’t want to _inconvenience you_ in any way.”

“Are you done?”

“Do you _want_ me to be done?”

Okay, she doesn’t have to be here or do this.  “If you’re still sulking, I can just leave you to it.”

“Great!  Thanks!  I appreciate the fuckin’ consideration!”

Carolina turns and stalks out.

 

* * *

 

Caboose has two meetings with Dr. Grey, the details of which Carolina doesn't make herself privy to.  When Dr. Grey sends her a message requesting her presence at the sessions she politely declines.  Kimball needs her to review the upcoming missions and assist with troop placement and strategy, she still has to scout along the southern wall for any holes in their defenses and that's not even counting the solo intel-retrieval missions outside of the city she has lined up.  There's too much to do to waste time sitting in on something that doesn't even require her presence.

In retrospect, declining might not have been the best idea.  Not because Carolina thinks there's something important she'd missed, but rather because it seems to have annoyed Dr. Grey.  And when Dr. Grey is annoyed, she becomes very, very difficult to work with.

“Dr. Grey.”  Carolina manages, just barely, to keep from gritting that out through her teeth which considering the bullshit she’s been putting up with for the past two days is a testament to how incredibly patient she’s become.  “I don’t need his biography or his medical history or to see his file.  I’m not his mother.  I just need an effective treatment plan that will help him focus on my instructions.  Is that something you can provide?”

The doctor uses that tone that Carolina’s noticed shows up mostly when Dr. Grey believes she’s talking to people too hopped up on painkillers to understand her.  “Well of course I _can,_ if you just want a list of things to do.  I could give you the first step right now, if you like!”

Carolina is not convinced.  “I'm almost afraid to ask.”

“Step one is to learn more about your student!”  Dr. Grey taps her tablet against Carolina's arm and somehow she manages not to punch it out of her hands.  “Which you would have already completed if you'd attended the sessions as I requested!  I learned _quite a bit._   He could talk for hours!”

“Which is why I didn't attend,” Carolina points out sharply.  “There's no time for that sort of thing.  Besides, aren't the sessions between doctor and patient supposed to be confidential?”

“Usually, they are.  But I suggested it and the patient agreed.”

He'd agreed?  That doesn't have to mean anything.  Most likely it _doesn't_ mean anything.  Caboose more often than not just tends to go with the flow, allowing other people make his decisions for him.  He’s a sociable person, so obviously he’d have agreed to anybody joining them.  “Regardless, I wasn’t able to attend, and I don’t have the time to talk about it at length now, either.  If you could just forward me the plan you come up with, I’d really appreciate it.”

Dr. Grey shrugs, and it’s unfair how all these psychologist types know when to give up a fight.  It just feels like they’re winning all the time.  “Suit yourself, Agent Carolina.”

Carolina barely manages to stop herself from firing off something immature.  She’ll blame that urge on the lack of Epsilon’s presence.  Now her brain’s trying to compensate for his absence by making her behave childishly instead.

Dr. Grey makes good on her word; two days later, there’s a data package from her in Carolina’s inbox and she reviews the suggested methods with a careful eye.  It looks a lot like the advice Wash gave her, _avoid shouting/aggressive displays, redirect attention with positive reinforcement_ and the dreaded, _forming a trusting emotional connection would greatly benefit both teacher and pupil._   She’s not sure she can do the last one, not in a matter of a few weeks anyway.  Nobody bonds that fast.  But the first two, she can...probably work on.  She’s not a fool, she knows what her temper is like but without the other sim troopers around to egg each other on, it can’t be as bad.  He _has_ to be able to pay attention sometime.

 

* * *

 

He’s worse.  Carolina has no idea how it’s possible, but he’s _even worse_ than imagined.  “ _Caboose,_ ” she snaps before pulling up short and taking a deep breath. _No aggression.  No shouting._   “Caboose,” she tries again, voice so even she could level a table with it, “I need you to understand.  When I tell you to take a lap, I don’t mean to _sit on someone’s lap._   Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“I am hearing words from your mouth, yes,” Caboose nods hurriedly.

Jesus.  Jesus Christ.  “Are you _understanding_ those words?”

“Do not sit on people,” Caboose repeats in a monotone.

“Yes.  That’s part of it.”  Carolina rubs a hand down her face, frustrated with Caboose, frustrated with _herself._   She’ll never see how skilled he is or isn’t if she doesn’t figure this communication thing out, first and foremost.  “All right.  Would it be more helpful for you if I don’t use sayings or military lingo?”

“Yes, I do not want to do the limbo, please.  I am too big to win.”

“Okay,” she says, mostly because she’s praying that’s just his weird way of answering and not an admission to being completely and totally checked out from what’s going on.  “I want you to go run for a little bit.  Run around the perimeter of this room, and then come back to me.  Okay?”

Caboose nods again, too quick.  “Okay.”

He doesn’t move.

“ _Now,_ ” Carolina grits out between her teeth.

“Oh, now!  Okay.  Okay, I will go run now.”  Caboose turns and jogs off, curls bouncing, heads right for the edge of the room and through the front doors. 

Carolina moans and allows herself a second to bury her head in her hands before taking off after him.  “ _Caboose,_ get back here!”

 

* * *

 

Dr. Grey seems even less pleased to see Carolina than Carolina is to see her, which is saying something.  Dr. Grey is never quite _displeased_ to see people, not visibly anyway.  Her cheer is steadfast, manic almost in its persistence.  “Are you _sure_ you’re following my instructions to the letter?”

“I’ve avoided shouting wherever possible- I have to get his attention somehow, it’s unavoidable-”

“Agent Carolina, do you have ten minutes to spare right now?”

Carolina pulls up short.  She’s not used to being interrupted by anyone other than- well, by someone she’ll _allow_ to interrupt her.  Despite her respect for Dr. Grey’s intelligence and resourcefulness, she usually doesn’t have a place on that very, very short list.  “…all right.  Fine.  Lead the way.”

Dr. Grey takes her into a nearby supply closet.

Carolina slips inside and locks the door behind them.  “I expected something different.”

“We all have to make do!”  Dr. Grey clasps her wrists in front of herself and leans back against a shelving unit.  “Agent Carolina, I think you should reconsider taking Captain Caboose on as your student.”

Carolina _had_ been relaxing against a crate, but now she’s up on both feet, arms folded and glaring.  Having Wash and Epsilon doubt her ability to train Caboose is one thing; having someone who doesn’t know her very well is _quite_ another.  “We’ll have to disagree on that.”

“ _Why_ do you want to teach him?”  Dr. Grey tips her head.  Carolina notes idly that she hardly ever sees the doctor out of armor, despite the fact that Armonia has been listed as more or less safe and that most medical personnel don’t wear their armor within the hospital anymore.  Actually seeing a face to go with that eccentric voice and personality is almost jarring.  Carolina had expected something silly, like purple eyes or makeup to match her armor color scheme.  “I don’t think you’ve prepared yourself completely for the responsibility.  You don’t have the time.”

“We all have to pull our own weight,” Carolina scoffs.  “Some of us are capable of pulling more weight than others.  I wouldn’t have agreed to teach him if I thought I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

“I don’t doubt it.”  Dr. Grey slips her hands into her coat pockets.  “So!  Let me be frank with you, in the spirit of saving both of us time: you _can’t_ teach him without drastically altering your approach method.  Would I be right to say you’ve never taught someone with special needs before?”

“I’ve lead a team of soldiers with varied and _difficult_ personalities, I can handle one-”

“ _Neurotypical_ personalities, from my understanding,” Dr. Grey interrupts, and that’s twice now.  Carolina’s irritation must show in her body language somehow, because the doctor continues, “This isn’t a criticism against you.  I’m sure you’d do perfectly well with an entire squadron of officers!  Just not this one.”

Carolina can feel the blunt edges of her nails dig into the inside of her gloves before forcibly relaxing her grip.  “We don’t have a choice.  Either we teach him how to effectively navigate the field, or we constantly have a babysitter looking out for him.  Or, we completely cut him out of the picture.”

“Removing the captain from skirmishes might be the best course of action.”  Dr. Grey reaches up and pushes her hair behind her ear.  “I understand that due to certain circumstances it’s been necessary for Captain Caboose to accompany his friends onto the battlefield up to this point.  But you’re right!  As he is, he requires constant supervision and is a danger to both himself and the people around him.  If it were up to me, professionally speaking, I’d say bench him!  But it’s not.  And after speaking with the captain at length, I think it would be worse for his mental health to be left behind.  So as you can see, we’re at an impasse!  Either Captain Caboose receives the necessary training to become an effective soldier, or he’s left behind while his friends put themselves in danger and suffers emotionally.  Wouldn’t be the first time!  War’s filled with that sort of thing.  Can’t go around taping up every other broken heart!”

Carolina closes her eyes and fights the urge to tilt her head back in aggravation.  “What’s the _point,_ Dr. Grey?”

“Yes, getting there!  My point is that you have to weigh your options.  Is his presence on the battlefield that necessary?  Is it worth the effort necessary to make that sort of thing happen?  In the end would it be better for the greater good to leave him behind?  Would it be better for _you?_   I’d like you to seriously consider these things before I provide you with an updated training regimen.”  Dr. Grey smiles and it reaches her eyes, but not quite.  Carolina gets the feeling that it probably hasn’t for a long, long while.  “I understand you don’t particularly enjoy being told you can’t do something, but this really isn’t about you or your abilities.  Training the Captain will take a lot of time and dedication, as well as a willingness to work closely with myself and others.  He will be, for lack of a better term, a _project._   And like you I’m incredibly, terribly busy and while I would love to help you with this for both my research purposes and for the wellbeing of Chorus, I don’t have time to waste drawing up training plans that will never work.”  Dr. Grey reaches for the door and taps the lock release.  “Please take as long as you need in here to think it over.  But not too long!  We _are_ all dying, as you know.”

The door swishes shut behind her.

Armonia has a state-of-the-art hospital, six floors of specialty treatment rooms and entire wings dedicated to individual patient treatment.  What it lacks in staff it makes up for in sheer technological clout; they might not have the personnel to _run_ all the tests necessary, but they’ll never have to hunt around for the medical equipment to do it with.  The overflow of such surplus has been stacked into hallways and crammed into supply closets like this one for easy access.  If the planet were in better shape, the equipment in just one room would probably go for hundreds of thousands of credits.

Carolina doesn’t know that.  Carolina just stares at the shelving unit the doctor had been leaning against and desperately fights the urge to break every single thing she can see.

What she _does_ know is that her anger over this isn’t entirely logical, or even warranted.  She understands that.  She knows that she’s always been angry, since she was a little child all the way to now and that as she’s gotten older it’s really only become something she’s honed and focused for specific purposes.  Her anger hasn’t ever really gone away, just become something stored or redirected for when she needs to put a fist through somebody’s visor.  Unchecked rage doesn’t get a soldier much further than a file full of insubordination marks.

Still, she has to take a few minutes to reassure herself that Dr. Grey wasn’t criticizing _her,_ just her approach.  It’s hard.  It’s very hard, made harder by the fact that she knows where _this_ comes from too, this mix of fury and shame.  It comes from perfect scores on school reports ignored on the kitchen table, it comes from award ceremonies with an empty chair labeled DR. L CHURCH.  It comes from the sudden absence of blonde hair and a strong, warm grip lifting her up into the air, a laugh that sounds like her own.  She can’t go into that yet.  She can’t dig into that, not after years of burying it.

If Epsilon were here, at least she wouldn’t get lost in her own head.

Carolina pushes off the crate and punches the door release.

The pathway to Kimball’s office is a long remembered one.  Carolina, and to a lesser degree Washington, have more or less acted as advisers for all things military.  Not to say that Kimball is a terrible leader, but more that she’s adjusting to leading terribly.  Carolina can see that she’s an excellent soldier, a terrific officer, but asking her to stay off the battlefield and conduct everything from a distance is taking its toll on her.  Kimball is cut from a similar cloth as Carolina.  She wants to get her hands dirty.

Doyle is more accustomed to staying behind and out of battles, and is much more obvious about his preference for it too.  Carolina can’t relate to him.  She can relate to wanting desperately to keep things safe, to wanting to surround himself and his with tall walls and towered armaments to ward off enemy attacks.  He is the type who would build an impenetrable fortress before an indomitable fleet and while Carolina would never prescribe to the philosophy of ‘best offense is a good defense,’ she can see the reason behind it.  That’s because of Epsilon.  He’s surprisingly cautious for such a combative personality.  It must be the logic inherent in all artificial intelligence units.

Her hand is lifted to knock on Kimball’s office door when she stops.

_I know what it’s like to spend your life chasing ghosts._

Carolina’s heart sinks.

She knocks.

 

* * *

 

While most of the civilian sections of the city remain abandoned, several establishments for the purpose of socialization remain in business to accommodate the ever-present need for human beings to fraternize with each other without the intention of murder.

In other words: bars are still open in Armonia.

Kimball and Carolina find one together, take two stools at the end of the counter (with Carolina between Kimball and the door because, unfortunately, assassinations are still a concern) and begin to work their way through a bottle of truly deplorable scotch.

“It would be fine if it was just because I’m a woman,” Kimball mutters into her glass, downing what’s likely her sixth finger of liquor.  Carolina watches her grasp the neck of the bottle with a vaguely unsteady grip and resolves to move the damn thing further out of her reach.  She signals to the bartender.  _Water please._   “That would be _fine._   I can shrug that off.  That mentality?  That it’s because I’m a woman?  Psht.  Pffpht.” 

How cute.  “What are these sounds you’re making supposed to mean?” Carolina asks, amused.

“That sort of mindset is easy to brush off.  When people- when people determine your worth because of biological factors?  You know?”  Kimball leans against Carolina’s shoulder a touch too long to just get her attention.  “Ah yes, I see that you possess a pair of _breasts!_   Clearly this makes you a less effective leader.”

Carolina snorts and takes a drink.  “Why are you upset?  We’re only incompetent and insubordinate.  You must be _on the rag._ ”

Kimball guffaws into Carolina’s shoulder.  ” _Yes._   Like that.  If it was just that I could deal with it, because that mindset is stupid and most people know it’s stupid.”  Her laughter tapers off and she stays there, cheek mushed into Carolina’s shoulder.  “…but it isn’t like that.  It’s much more complicated.”

It’s just the two of them and the bartender in the darkness of the bar.  This one is a bit off the beaten path.  Happy hour doesn’t tend to have any bearing on a militarized state where you’re off duty once you’re off duty and not square at five o’clock.  Carolina could probably put an arm around Kimball and it wouldn’t get around, that her loyalties are obvious.

She doesn’t.  “It usually is.”

Kimball pushes herself back up and rests her elbows on the bar, peering blankly into her empty tumbler.  “They hate me on a _personal_ level.  And I still can’t say that I regret anything I’ve done.  I don’t.  I regret the lives lost, but not what they were lost _for._ ”  She looks up at Carolina and in the dim lighting she looks every inch a war-weary general of an underground group of rebels.  “Does that make me infantile?”

Carolina tilts her head.  No wondering who’s called her _that._   “I wouldn’t say that.  But then again, I don’t have a dog in this fight.  No hurt feelings to speak of.”

“Everybody has hurt feelings somewhere,” Kimball mutters, and reaches for the bottle of scotch.  Carolina nudges the water into her hand instead.  Kimball glares at it, glares at Carolina until she relents and struggles with the cap, opening it up to take a swig.  “Mine are from my mother.  Military woman _through and through.”_   Carolina’s mouth goes dry.  “Left Dad and I alone at the house for months at a time.  Barely even wrote.  I had to wonder, sometimes: did she really want me?  Or was I just a natural progression, the step a person is expected to take after marriage?”  Kimball shakes her head.  “We were already heading for a war then.  She had to have known.  She must have known.”

Carolina twists her glass atop the counter, a war between _tell her_ and _say nothing_ battling hot in her chest.  “Sometimes it’s not so easy to know.”

“Not like when a bunch of aliens glass a planet, hm?  The signs are pretty obvious then.”  Kimball sips the water.  “I guess she couldn’t have.”

 _Tell her_ wins out.  Carolina’s tired of knowing things, and never being known.  Kimball- she can start here.  She can start with this person, who understands her more and more without her ever having said a word, who always says aloud what Carolina hasn’t even put to words yet.  Who will let Carolina put herself between her and the door, who will go with Carolina out drinking at two in the afternoon, who will spill out the parts that make her vulnerable because right here, between them, is _trust._  

_Emotional honesty._

She can practice it here, maybe.  “My mother died in the Covenant-Human wars,” she says, and though it feels like the world’s turning slows to a crawl as she says it, she knows that nothing actually changes at all.  The bartender doesn’t even move from where she’s dusting bottles, just three barstools away.  “Military woman also.  I barely remember her, but my-” here’s the complicated part, “my father took it much, much harder than I did.”

“Mm,” Kimball hums, and that’s all.  She doesn’t know.  She has no way of knowing all the intricate details the UNSC hushed behind Top Secret stamps and layers of red tape.  That some of the greatest war crimes committed by a name that will live on in infamy, the same name as hers (as her old name), were born from a man’s obsession with never allowing another soldier to die as his wife had.  That’s what the Project started as, right?  Why Carolina had submitted her application to begin with?  Because she believed in her father’s dream to create the ultimate soldier without the invasive SPARTAN surgeries, so that they could out-gun the enemy?  What started as a desperate scramble to save the human race ended as a man’s inability to move beyond his loss and see what he already had, what he could already _do._   Even at the end, the last thing her father wanted to see wasn’t her own face.

It was her mother’s.

“That sucks,” Kimball says.

Carolina pauses, glass halfway to downing.  “That _sucks?_ ” she asks incredulously.

“Ye _p_ ,” Kimball responds, popping the ‘p’.  “It sucks.  Families being torn apart by war is quite possibly the suckiest thing about it.”

“The suckiest thing,” Carolina echoes, a little flabbergasted.

“That’s how it goes.  Right?”  Kimball finishes almost half her bottle of water before she continues, leaning again into Carolina’s shoulder and lowering her voice for no discernable reason.  She’s so close that Carolina can make out her individual eyelashes.  “People’s lives are destroyed.  They have- they learn how to operate as pieces instead of a whole.  And it just keeps going, keeps going until people don’t know how to be like that again.”

“Like…what?”

Kimball sighs.  Her breath smells like bad scotch and a long day of work.  “Whole.”

Carolina goes quiet.  Then she finishes her drink.  “This is a pretty depressing topic.”

Kimball shoves off of Carolina’s shoulder with a laugh.  “ _Shocking,_ I know.  Imagine, the two of us being depressed.”

“I’m not depressed,” Carolina argues.

“Well, _I’m_ not depressed either.”

They stare at each other before Kimball cracks first, burying her face in her arms and snorting as Carolina ducks her head, shoulders trembling.

“I’m mad,” Carolina admits once they recover with a bit more scotch and a bit more water.  “More than anything, I think I’m just angry.”

“Angry about what?”  Kimball is looking at her with her big, dark eyes, chin in her hand.  Carolina thinks that she must be getting weaker because she might answer anything she asks right now.

“Besides the obvious?”

Kimball flaps her hand.  “Besides that.”

Carolina thinks.

She’s not dumb muscle, but she’s not _introspective._   Not without reason.  Her mother was like that too, or so she heard; a do-er, not a thinker, not like her father.  Doing was what got her recommended for promotions, _doing_ was what kept her squadmates and then later the soldiers under her command alive.  It was easy, to just know what she wanted, needed, and then going straight for it.  Carolina knows how to wield her motivation like a weapon.  It’s what makes her the best.

But maybe she needs to start mixing it up a little, if only it shouldn’t take her this long to figure out how to answer such a simple question.  “I’m angry about- about lots of things,” she finishes lamely.  “And I don’t like not knowing what to do about them.”

Kimball is still watching her, still beautiful, and Carolina is definitely edging toward drunk if she just thought that.  “Is one of those things Caboose?”

Carolina sniffs before downing the rest of her drink and pouring another.

“You don’t have to do this,” Kimball points out, voice gentle.  Carolina doesn’t know how she does it, but when anyone else uses that tone and those words all she wants to do is prove them wrong.  When Kimball does it, Carolina feels more- more _valued._   Like keeping her functional is more important than _her_ keeping _other things_ functional.  “You already take on more than you really should.”

“You can always tell me to cool down,” Carolina points out.

Kimball sighs.  “I would.  Is it selfish that I don’t want to?  You help so much.”

Something burns white-hot with pride and pleasure at that, just that.  Carolina is embarrassed of herself.  How desperate is she for praise?  “I’ll keep a closer eye on it,” she promises, and this time _she_ leans against _Kimball’s_ shoulder.  “Epsilon usually doesn’t let me get away with much anyway.”

“Is he with you right now?” Kimball asks curiously.

“No, no.”

“I didn’t think so.”  Kimball smiles a half-crooked smile that Carolina wants to kiss to fullness.  Holy _shit_ she’s drunk.  “He seems the noisy type.  Probably would’ve interrupted by now.”

“ _Absolutely._ ”  And because opening up once must’ve jarred something loose, Carolina continues.  “He and I aren’t, uh.  We’re sort of fighting right now anyway.”

Kimball leans back and blinks.  Carolina misses her body heat.  “You’re…fighting?  With your AI unit?”

“It’s a little complicated.  Have you ever interacted with an AI?”

Kimball shakes her head.

“They’re people, more or less.  Even fragments like Epsilon.  They’re a bit different; I used to just view them as equipment, during the Project, but I’ve since learned not to be so flippant about it.”  Carolina marvels at the ease with which she can talk about this, like somehow she’d just had to rip off the bandaid to let the wound air out.  Healing can’t be this easy.  She can’t possibly be making any sort of progress by spilling her guts like this.  “Epsilon especially, he’s colorful.  But we’re close.  It was a very rocky start, but now we’re- he’s my partner,” she finishes, a little muted.  She understands York and North a little better.  _We’re partners,_ they’d proclaim proudly, grinning at their little glowing companions.  They’d been lucky, up until they hadn’t.

She’s lucky now.  Shit, now she misses the little shithead.

Kimball nudges her out of her reverie.  “You must know each other pretty well.”

“It's.  You know.”  Carolina shrugs.  “We know how each other will act, but it's not like we know each other's favorite colors or fill out friendship surveys or anything like that.”

“What's wrong with knowing each other's favorite color?” 

She doesn't really have an answer for that.  Or she does- it's childish, it's irrelevant, it's a distraction from more pressing concerns, but then Kimball reaches up and tugs on a lock of her hair and grins at her.  “Mine's red, by the way.”

All thoughts fly out of her head and Carolina's mouth goes dry when she says, “Oh,” and in the back of her mind she can hear an echo of Church's amused little snort.

_Smooth._

* * *

 

Carolina comes by the war room and Church doesn't answer her again, but this time she uses the silence to gather herself before she mutters into the stillness of the room, “I'm sorry I treated you like an object.”

There's a poised sort of quiet, like the charge in the air before a lightning strike before Epsilon answers her in a tone that's half sulk, half tired indignation, “I'm not a thing.”

“I know that.  You _know_ I know that.”

The silence is tense again but it breaks when Epsilon admits, “Yeah, I do.  Okay, fine.  Whatever, I'm over it, I'm tired of dealing with Simmons anyway.  You here to pick me up?”

Carolina gets all her thinking about how happy she is not to be alone in her head out of the way so he doesn't see it and get too full of himself.  “I am.  I need your help.”

“All right, yank me.”

Epsilon's storage chip pops out of the console and Carolina plucks it out, slots it into her armor and relaxes when the seep of data flows into her implants, fills them again and Church's comfortable weight settles into her mind again, fills a space that wasn't aware of its own emptiness.

_Hahaaaa, you missed me._

Shit.  She wasn't as done as she'd thought.

Instead of ridicule Carolina feels the soft curl of Epsilon brushing against her thoughts, integrating himself with her in a way the twins had never managed in their short time together.  She remembers his stilted conversation with Tucker in the woods, _we're **guys**_ , he'd scoffed when she'd rolled her eyes, but she has to wonder how much of that was for Tucker's benefit because here, in her mind, he rubs against her like an affectionate cat.

_Missed you too.  You big baby._

“Right, _I'm_ the baby here,” she scoffs as she heads out of the war room.

_Ageist._

She laughs and her footsteps fall more even than they have in days.

 

* * *

 

Caboose doesn't show up for training and Carolina wishes she could say she's surprised. 

He'd been showing up but has been more and more scattered, unable to concentrate, getting every single instruction she gave him wrong.  She couldn't even get him to perform simple exercises without demonstrating, then explaining, then demonstrating again and even _then_ he performed them incorrectly.  Her anger got the best of her and she'd shout at him and it would just make things worse, make him even less likely to pay attention until he would just stare at her blankly until she threw her arms up and walked away. 

Now, however, she has Epsilon for help and she's sure she can figure something out with him to tell her what she needs to correct.  But Caboose doesn't show.

_Good!  You didn't tell me **this** was the help.  I would've fuckin' stayed where I was._

“Oh get over it,” she mutters, stalking from the training room and heading for Caboose's quarters first.  “He doesn't even know you're with me.  You can't even project an avatar, so stop being so obstinate and just help me out.  Will he be in his quarters?”

Church conveys an irritated huff.  _No, probably not.  He's probably hiding from you._

“Okay, so where?”

_Somewhere he'd feel safe._

Carolina turns toward Washington's quarters.

_No no, not Wash's.  Wash would make him go._

Carolina stops, surprised.  “Would he think of that?”

_Not with words but- look the guy doesn't really **think.**   He just does stuff.  He's probably with Tucker._

Tucker isn't even up when she gets there.  “I thought you were doing your own PT?” she accuses when he finally opens the door in his boxers.

“Yeah I am, just not at the asscrack of dawn,” he yawns into her face, like she's not capable of dragging him out of there and forcing him to run five miles in his skivvies.  She considers threatening that for his cooperation when he turns and shouts over his shoulder, “Hey Caboose!  Get over here, I'm not taking the heat for you.  Man up.”

Caboose sputters from somewhere inside Tucker's quarters before shuffling up behind him.  Tucker shoves him out the door and there they stand, she and Caboose both, Caboose staring down at his feet while she figures out how to deal with this.

_Hey, don't look at me.  I'm not technically here, remember?_

Asshole.  Like she was planning on asking him for help with this anyway.

_Sure you weren't._

“Caboose,” she starts, “why were you hiding at Tucker's?”

Caboose pulls on the drawstrings of his pants.  “Um.  I got lost.  I was going to go to training but I got lost and that is nobody's fault.”

“Did you get lost because you didn't want to go?”

Caboose doesn't say anything, just ties his drawstrings in a complicated-looking knot.

Does she have the time to waste on this?  She could just return Caboose to Washington's care.  They could keep going the way they were going before, instead of trying to force something that won't ever change.  Washington's had so much time to get used to Caboose, he knows how to handle him already; Carolina doesn't know what she's going and she doesn't have the time or patience or...whatever else is required to learn how to handle him.  Maybe some missing component she doesn't have anymore, some piece essential to form bonds with people like Caboose.  She must be lacking somewhere because every time she's faced with this part, the uncomfortable silence where she asks a question and Caboose doesn't answer all she wants to do is turn around and leave, do something constructive, _prove_ she can accomplish anything she sets her mind to.  Anything but fucking _this._

_Emotional honesty._

Carolina starts.  She hadn't expected Epsilon to interject.

_You don't know how to talk to him?  Tell him.  He'll understand._

Would he really?

_I mean, probably._

Carolina's heart hammers (which is ridiculous, she can face down a dozen mercs with no weapons of her own and all she feels is that cool calm but one conversation with a fragile sim soldier rattles her).  She opens her mouth, closes it.  Clenches her hands into fists.

_Need a push?_

No, she can do it, and she scowls when she says, “I don't know how to talk to you.”

Caboose's eyes flick up to hers, then back down.

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and reaches deep past the anger, the irritation, the determination for something softer.  Something that takes work to bring to the surface.  Feelings wrapped up in memories decades old, that she hasn't really had in so long she's half-worried she's remembering them wrong.

_I'll help._

The smell of her father making matzo balls in chicken broth, her mother exclaiming when he sets the table because she _loves_ it, Carolina loves it too, she _remembers._   She's not sure if she should be grateful for the help because with the warmth comes the ache of loss but at least that's there, at least she's got them both instead of just the bad.

“I don't know what to say to you,” she tries again, and at least her voice comes out less clipped than before.  “I don't know if I made this clear- if this is- if you understand me, but I want to help you.  So that you can keep fighting alongside everybody.  Is that something you want?”

Caboose looks up at her finally, eyes wide with surprise and he shifts his weight, presses the ends of the drawstrings together.  “I can't do that if Wash keeps training me?”

“Wash thinks you can do better.  He thinks I can help you do better.”  Carolina's spirits lift at this, just _engaging_ with Caboose on a level where they're exchanging words, ideas, _understanding,_ that's more than they've had since this all started.  “But I'm pretty out of my depth.  I don't know what you need from me so I can teach you.”

The smile Caboose wears is a little weary and it surprises her to see it on a kid so young.  But he's not that young, is he?  He's seen as much as the other sim troopers.  “It's okay.  I don't know either.”

Not exactly comforting but something warm settles in Carolina's chest anyway at the admission.  At least they're both lost in this together.  “Okay, so.  What do you want to do?”

Caboose tilts his head.

“We'll go to the training room in a minute, but- you pick something you want to do.  I'll go do it with you.”  This is part of it, she thinks.  She's the instructor and he's the pupil, but Dr. Grey had made it clear this wouldn't be like training other soldiers.  Discipline can't just be ordered from Caboose.  She's going to have to make him _want_ to obey her, and in order to do that he'll have to like her.  This is the part she has a little more trouble with but this should be a good start.

Which is how she ends up jogging over to the barracks with Caboose as he proceeds to knock on nearly every door in the complex, searching for his squad to tell them good morning.  She gets a lot of stares; she figures most of them don't know who she is because she's rarely out of armor in public.  Only a few recognize her and hurriedly salute, despite her being out of uniform, which she dismisses with a curt nod.

Caboose, she notices, knocks on a few doors that don't belong to any of his men by accident and proceeds to tell those cadets good morning as well.  It must be something he does often because everybody knows who _he_ is (though honestly, there aren't that many people his size with an impossibly loud voice like that anyway).  They manage to disturb the rest of over two dozen people before Caboose is satisfied, stares out into the open sky and says, “Ahhh, that was nice,” turns around and leaves.

_Don't even ask me, I don't know._

“Do you, uh.  Feel better?” Carolina asks.

“Yes.”  Caboose at least sounds satisfied, and he's answering her questions.  That's better than usual.

“You do that a lot?”

“No no, just when I remember.  I like to visit people.  And meet new people.”

“At six in the morning?”

“WHENEVER THE URGE COMES TO ME!” Caboose shouts up at the sky and Carolina shushes him.

“Captain!”

Carolina turns to see one of the few soldiers who'd already been awake jogging over to them.  He's almost as large as Caboose, the physique of a soldier well-trained written all over ropey muscles and perfect posture as he snaps his heels and fires off a flawless salute.  “Sir, ma'am.”  At Carolina's nod he returns his attention to Caboose.  “Are you off to train this morning, Captain?”

“Yup, I'm training with Agent Carolina for special stuff.” Caboose chirps, as friendly as ever.  “Are you gonna go do some special stuff?”

Caboose doesn’t return the salute, so Smith continues to hold it steadfast.  How long can he hold that salute steady?  How often has he _had_ to because Caboose didn’t realize he has to return it?  “Not quite sir.  I've kept a regular training schedule for the past six years and I don't intend to neglect it now that we've finally made it to the capital.  Training with Agent Washington doesn't start until oh-seven-hundred, so I usually take this opportunity to work on my own personal betterment.”

An idea strikes Carolina, and it's either brilliant or idiotic.  Realizing she may come to regret this later, she cuts in.  “Lieutenant Smith, was it?”

If possible, Smith's back straightens even further.  Carolina hastily returns the salute so the kid can drop it already, which he does with an air of gratitude.  “Yes ma'am.  Lieutenant John Andersmith, Blue Company.”

This one's military through and through.  This is more familiar, she knows how to field this.  “Soldier, you'll be accompanying us on your captain’s special training this morning.”  Caboose gasps and covers his mouth in delight.  “Fall in.”

“ _Ma'am!_ ”  Smith marches behind them until Caboose falls back to walk side-by-side with him, chattering animatedly about things that likely aren't going to happen (such as them going on adventures together this morning like to caves and mountains and Middle Earth, whatever that is). 

_What the hell are you planning?_

Carolina strains to keep one ear on the conversation going on behind her.  “I’m going to observe how he interacts with Caboose,” she whispers under her breath.  “They seem familiar and Caboose was his commanding officer during their time with the New Republic.”

_Okay, ‘commanding officer’ is probably way too much credit.  The only thing Caboose commands is a deep, persistent sense of unease in the people around him._

“Stop being so melodramatic,” Carolina hisses, shoving open the doors and rounding on Caboose and his lieutenant.  “All right you two, warm up.  Stretches, then ten circuits around the room, thirty reps pushups, pull ups and fifty squats.  Go.”

This is the point where things begin to break down, which is why Carolina kept it exactly the same.  She needs to see if just adding the presence of another person will change anything in Caboose’s behavior.

_And you don’t think you’re smart._

“I never said I wasn’t smart,” Carolina mutters under her breath, watching Caboose rush through the stretches and stand around impatiently for Smith –Andersmith?- to finish.  “Just that I’m not _science-minded._   And I’m not.”

_Hate to break it to you C, but you’re running an experiment with controlled variables.  That’s pretty science-y._

“Don’t say that.”

_Doesn’t have to be a bad thing._

“Don’t say it anyway.”

Epsilon fades to the background of her mind, content to observe and keep his thoughts to himself.  He must have really, _really_ missed her.

_Not that much.  Don’t flatter yourself._

There is a key difference in Caboose with a warmup companion and Caboose without one.  Andersmith doesn’t ever correct him or try to refocus his attention, but Caboose is corrected anyway.  He follows behind Andersmith as if on a tether, wandering away slightly before snapping back to his side.  Andersmith, for the most part, seems pretty used to Caboose’s predilection for distractions but never makes an effort to discourage it.  He’s officially Caboose’s subordinate so Carolina had figured he wouldn’t, but it’s still strange to see someone not attempting to corral Caboose in some way.

_“Washington seems to have him more or less controlled.”_

Carolina starts and feels Epsilon perk up in her mind at the realization.  “ _That’s_ what I’ve been doing wrong,” she mutters.  “He doesn’t need to be controlled.  He just needs a focal point.”

_I think you’re onto something._

Caboose and Andersmith finish warming up at the same time, twenty minutes faster than ever when Carolina had been trying to force Caboose to warm up alone or apart from her own schedule.  They return to her together and Caboose’s attention is wandering, but he still stands beside Andersmith and waits.

This also must be something Wash already knew, and Tucker; she knows the two of them got him to train with them both in the canyon and with the New Republic.  Maybe they weren’t wholly _aware_ of it but it must’ve occurred to them, that he works better with someone to focus on, when he has-

_A friend._

Carolina’s shoulders hitch up.  She hadn’t expected Epsilon to chip in, and not with that voice, either.  Usually he doesn’t allow her to speak to any of the memories and the soft whisper of Theta’s voice comes as an unwelcome surprise.  An apology doesn’t come, but Epsilon retreats to the back of her mind again all the same.

“Andersmith, I understand you’ll need to report to Agent Washington soon.  You’re dismissed.”

Andersmith salutes sharply.  “Yes ma’am.”  Carolina doesn’t miss the way Caboose stares longingly at his lieutenant’s back as he jogs off.

“Caboose,” Carolina begins and she _also_ doesn’t miss the way he jumps before whirling around, bringing his attention somewhere around her knees instead of her face.  “…we’re going to do something different today.  We’re just going to run.”

“Agent Carolina, you are being very weird right now,” Caboose tells her frankly, which startles a laugh out of her.

“I guess so.  But if neither of us know what to do next, then we should probably try different things, right?  I hate the idea of wasting our time but running should both help us exercise and also, we’ll see more of the city.”  Learn more of the terrain, become accustomed to being in each other’s space while doing something simple, a bunch of things.  Carolina dredges up the exercises she’d performed back when she was first recruited into the Project, to get to know her Agents.  With them it had been as simple as being good at what you do.  That was all you needed to gain respect.

That’s never been true with any of the sim troopers. They've always demanded _more_.

As they jog side-by-side through the city, past surprised cadets, weaving through officers and the motor pool, turning into the ghost town that is the civilian district Carolina thinks that it’s not perfect, this system, this trial-and-error.  It’s not efficient.  It’s fifty percent wasted time but if nothing else she feels like she’s accomplished something monumental when Caboose stays there, at her shoulder, for nearly the entire thing, taking water from her and dumping it over his head before they pick a new direction and go again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> caboose looked like natalie portman at age 13 im calling it now


	2. Be a Lucky Bitch!

Agent Carolina starts over from the beginning.

It’s a running theme, she thinks, the one constant she has in her life.  Something happens to slam her into the ground and when she pushes herself up, she’s back at the starting line.  Her mother dies; she has to start all over again with her father, like they’re strangers or something.  She’s replaced as the number one agent in the Project; she has to run harder, kill better and faster to try and overtake the competition.  She loses her AI and everything in the span of a few days; there she is again with absolutely nothing, no friends, no family, no help she can trust. 

The only time she’s ever gotten back up and seen someone else beside her is after she lost her father.  Then again, one could argue she lost her father years ago.

_You’re being dramatic again._

“I know,” Carolina sighs, and rolls out of bed.

Carolina starts with basic training.  It's something Caboose is familiar with, has been doing off and on for years (more with Wash teaching him than any other time, from what she's gathered, because the sim troopers will laze around for weeks if left to their own devices), but not something he can do alone.

When they run, she runs beside him.  She does pushups, pullups, chinups beside him.  She stretches right next to him, keeps him in reach so she can adjust his stance during the kata she has to show him over and over again every day because it won't stick but she swallows down her frustration, pushes that aside, takes it out on mercs when she heads back into the field.  Charon’s cronies have taken to running in the opposite direction when she shows up.  She sorta loves it.

_You **definitely** love it._

Church actually helps.  He rails and rants in her head whenever Caboose screws up and she finds herself playing mediator even though Caboose is none the wiser to Epsilon's presence.  Calming Church down helps her find a middle ground where she can be both annoyed while still sympathizing with Caboose and his inability to concentrate.  Something that was beyond her comprehension –experiencing failure after failure- stops being the annoyance it was to her before.  She used to hate it when people weren’t up to the task.  Now, as she struggles with this, as his failures reflect her own, she thinks maybe she was a bit narrow-minded.  It also occurs to her, as she corrects Caboose again, that no matter how many times he screws up he still doesn't stop trying.

That means a lot.  Carolina can work with an acute lack of success but she cannot abide a quitter.

When trying to assemble a more specialized training plan, it occurs to her that she doesn’t know what Caboose is capable of.  While she might not subscribe to the school of thought that encourages midnight nail-painting and giggling over which boys are the cutest, she has to admit that at least for her old team, she knew what they all could _do._   That she doesn’t know what Caboose can do when she’s attempting to train him is like putting the cart before the horse.

“Oh, uh.  He’s good at breaking shit.”

Grif is not helpful.

“He can do stuff?”

Neither is Simmons.

“Oh my gosh!  You know what he’s really, really good at?  _Listening._   I mean, he might not get everything right if you ask him to repeat it back, but he listens so well that sometimes when you’re done talking, he’s still waiting there for you say even more!  Just, staring!  Completely blank!”

Donut at least tries, but Carolina gets the feeling that she’s barking up the wrong tree.

Sarge, surprisingly, is the most helpful of the Reds.  “Yer trainin’ that Blue, huh?  Why?”

“Because he’s a menace to society and needs to broken and remolded into something useful,” Epsilon says from her shoulder.  She swats a hand through his avatar.

Sarge nods along though, and reaches up to rub the chin of his helmet thoughtfully.  It’s weird.  Who treats their helmet like their actual face?  Why are all the sim troopers so bizarre?  “Well…he’s good at them robotics thingies.  Put the little sunspot over there inside that disco ball thingymajiger.”

“Don’t call me that,” Church orders flatly.

“Which that?  Sunspot or disco ball?”

“ _Any_ of that.”

“ _Caboose_ is the one who installed Epsilon into the artifact?” Carolina asks incredulously.  She’d- well, Washington had mentioned his penchant for mechanical and electrical work, but she’d taken that to mean he was something of a hobbyist.  Repairing that Mantis probably had just been a matter of slotting a few gears back into place.

_Yeah, not so much._

“The boy likes to put things together almost as much as he likes taking ‘em apart.  Don’t always put ‘em back _right_ but he tries.”  Sarge folds his arms.  “That, and he’s strong as a pro wrestler.  Not the fake ones either!  The ones that’re actually strong.  Saw him flip a Warthog back on its wheels with just one hand once, in the _sand._   No leverage in the sand.  ‘Course, he’s usually usin’ that strength to screw up, but you knew that.”

“I do.”  Carolina wonders.  “Thanks, Sarge.  This was actually really informative.”

Sarge chuckles and, to her shock, reaches over to slap her on the back.  “You got your work cut out for you.  Let me know if you need a hand with the boy, I’ll whip him into shape.”

Asking Sarge for help would be a lot better than crawling back to Tucker or Wash for pointers, so Carolina might actually do that.  “...all right.  I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

* * *

 

“Dr. Grey told me to think about whether or not this is really worth it,” Carolina sighs, hands behind her head.  Church uses the tablet on her nightstand to project his avatar and has a seat in the air, legs swinging.  “I’m wasting so much time just trying to figure out what to _do._   I could be out in the field.”

_What, getting cabin fever?_

“It’s not that.”  Carolina hesitates before peeking to see if Church bought- nope, he didn’t.  ‘All right, it’s part of that.  I feel like I’m wasting away here.”

_Imagine how **he** must feel about it.  Moron never gets to do any missions at all._

That…hadn’t occurred to her actually.

 _Look._   Epsilon simulates a gesture and sound into her head that doesn’t have any kind of physical equivalent, something uniquely _other_ that had made her skin crawl at first with the strangeness of it but now, she kind of covets these small, secret things that are only theirs.  _If you repeat this to anybody, I’m denying it._

“Okay,” Carolina says.

_You’ve seen what he can do.  When he was tearing into those Freelancer robots?  I wasn’t doing a whole lot.  He just needs a push sometimes.  I don’t know why he keeps fucking up so much, it’s probably a bunch of psychological bullshit that Dr. Grey might figure out, but that doesn’t change that if you can get this to work then a whole lot fewer soldiers are gonna die.  And maybe he doesn’t know how to say that, but that’s definitely something he wants too._

Carolina breathes in deep, breathes out.  Rolls onto her side to regard Church’s avatar.  “…he is _so_ your best friend.”

_No he’s- shut up!_

Church’s avatar bursts in a too-bright flash of light before disappearing and Carolina laughs at the seething embarrassment boiling in the back of her mind. 

_FUCK YOU NO HE’S NOT_

“I don’t know why you’re such a prick about it,” she says conversationally.  “There’s nothing wrong with being best friends with someone who stalks you and would probably marry you if you asked.”

_Oh my god.  You are the **worst** person.  Just because I know how he thinks doesn’t mean I actually care about that fucking moron, okay- I mean I know how **you** think and I **hate** you!_

“Uh huh,” Carolina drawls.

_SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GO TO SLEEP_

 

* * *

 

Two minutes after Carolina sends Dr. Grey the message 'Can you forward me Caboose's file' she receives a response that looks like this:

**YES!!!!**

...../ )  
.....' /  
\---' (_____  
......... ((__)  
..... _ ((___)  
....... -'((__)  
\--.___((_)

-and a file labeled _Caboose, Michael J._   It's a huge file size but Church tells her that there are 3D brainscan models inside and those might make up the bulk of it.  She ignores the scans, the medical charts she can't parse on her own and instead loads up the three audio recordings of the evaluation sessions Caboose had with the doctor, one physical, two psychological.  She'd been present during the beginning of the physical until it seemed as if Caboose was no longer afraid, and then she'd left to do...something.  Now she can't even remember what it was.

Carolina listens to the recordings whenever she has a moment to spare.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, come here,” Carolina says one morning.

Caboose goes.

“Plant your feet.  …no, I don’t mean actually pl- okay, spread your feet a little so they’re shoulder-width apart.”

“My shoulders or your shoulders?”

She’s getting used to this.  His questions aren’t as exasperating anymore.  “Yours.”  When Caboose seems like he’s got a steady stance she shoves him around, sees if he staggers.  Not much.  “Okay.  Hold your arms out in front of you.”  She has to grab his wrists and swing his arms around in front the right way, but instead of letting go she just says, “Don’t let them fall back down,” and pulls up her feet, curling them at the knee and hanging all of her not-inconsiderable body weight from his arms.

Caboose peers down at her curiously.  “Are we playing a game?”

Carolina has this kneejerk reaction to the word ‘playing.’  She doesn’t like it because ‘playing’ indicates there’s nothing of value happening.  ‘Playing’ represents time wasted on silly childish games instead of utilized properly for progress, for growth, for things that produce actual _results._   She had no siblings, and not many childhood friends; there was no time for extracurricular activities that didn’t serve a purpose.  She participated in varsity volleyball because it helped keep her fit and because it looked good on college resumes.  Of course, she’d never ended up _attending_ a conventional college, but she’d used her acquired skills in basic and up through her military career also.  She never _played_ volleyball, though.  She competed in it.

But that’s her.

“…yeah,” she says slowly.  “Yeah, we’re playing a game.”

The change in Caboose’s demeanor is almost immediate.  While he trained with her diligently, it was always with this vacant, unengaged expression.  A smile, yes, but it was default, it was resting.  Now he perks, stance becoming studier, eyes brighter, grin bigger.  “Oh!  I don’t know this game, but I know some other fun games!”

Carolina marvels that with as long as she’s been hanging here, his arms haven’t so much as trembled.  She should put more weight on when he does his strength training.  “What kind of games?”

“Some fun games like, ‘how much of our stuff can Caboose carry across the canyon?’  And, ‘can Caboose give me a piggyback all the way back to base?’  I like that last one, I did that one a lot with Church.  Me and Tucker traded off.”

Those don’t sound like games so much as they sound like servitude.  _Don’t look at me, that wasn’t my fault._   Well, maybe she can work with this.  Caboose at least seems pretty happy talking about it.  “Okay.  Let’s make up a new game like that, one for just you and me.”

Caboose gasps before ducking his head and whispering excitedly, “Is it going to be our _secret game?_ ”

Carolina lets go of Caboose’s wrists and straightens, leaning over to stretch out her hamstrings.  “Sure, it’ll be our secret game.”

“I’M SO EXCITED,” Caboose shouts, thankfully not in her ear this time.  Carolina’s given up on volume control; all she can hope to do is make sure he’s not directing all twelve billion decibels of lung power at her eardrums.

_What are you doing?  This isn’t gonna work out well for you._

“The new game is called this: let’s go find the heaviest thing on Chorus that Caboose can lift.”

_Yeah this is **definitely** not gonna end well._

 

* * *

 

“Lopez!  You’re not done refitting that Warthog with the triple-barrel emp cannon I asked for!”

“Sí.  Debido a que no estoy haciendo eso.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a little behind in your duties Lopez, just put my request to the front of the line!  Priority uno, pronto!”

“Eres un estúpido y sus ideas son estúpidos.”

Carolina leads Caboose past the Lopez’s mechanic hutch and over to a Warthog on cinderblocks.  “Can you pick that up?”

 _“¿QUÉ?”_ Lopez calls in alarm, pushing away from his current project.

Carolina tries to hide the grin on her face when Caboose just grabs the frame and heaves the front end of the Warthog right off the blocks, various Chorus personnel gasping and whispering at the display of strength.  She’d never realized it before, but having a student who can do extraordinary things is kind of great.  Stubbornly insisting to herself that what she’s doing isn’t _preening,_ Carolina asks, “How heavy is that, Caboose?”

“Eh,” Caboose says, getting a shoulder under the frame and pushing it up almost onto its back bumper, Lopez shouting for him to put it back down (that’s probably what he’s saying anyway).  “It’s kind of heavy?  It’s shaped weird so I can’t just pick it right up.”

“Right you are,” Carolina breezes, hands on her hips.  Look at that, you recruits.  You youngsters.  This is her student and she’s going to teach him how to punch a hole through any merc who tries to shoot you.  Not only is she the best at scouting, infiltration, intelligence retrieval, enemy subjugation and general badassery, but she can teach it to the one soldier everyone called hopeless.  Suck on _that._   “How about we go find something more of a challenge for you?  Go ahead and put that back down, _gently_ now.”

Caboose drops the Warthog back onto the blocks and Lopez punches him in the shoulder for it, glaring as hard as a faceless robot can glare.  Caboose rubs his shoulder as Carolina jerks her head over toward the motor pool.  “Come on, this way.”

A growing gaggle of off-duty recruits ends up following them as Carolina leads Caboose from object to object.  Lifting a replacement armor crate is no problem; Caboose heaves it up onto his back and takes a few steps with it before teetering.  He lifts, in succession, a Mongoose with one arm, a triple-axle Warthog, a troop transport van and is only stumped at the tank, only barely managing to get its side treads off the ground.  “Sheila was always very shy about being picked up,” Caboose calls as he strains, and Carolina stops him before he can bust a vein in his forehead.  Still, this is _without_ armor.  The armor itself provides limited strength enhancements to all soldiers, so maybe if he were armored up he could actually flip the damn thing.

“Hey,” calls one of their tagalongs, and Carolina glances over at him as Caboose comes up behind her, panting and wiping his face with his shirt.  “There’s some tram cars that derailed in the attack a while ago, and we can’t get a crane over there to lift ‘em out.  Can you get those back on the tracks?”

Carolina glances at Caboose.

 

* * *

 

“We had to go armor up for it, but yes, we did.”

Kimball reaches across her desk to refill Carolina’s glass.  “Well, I mean, that’s definitely constructive.  Doyle’s been griping about those cars since we moved into the capital so I’m glad it’s done.  You’d think we’d toppled the damn things on _purpose_ with how he goes on and on about it.  I swear, he can’t look past small inconveniences to see the bigger picture to save his-” Kimball stops herself and sighs.  “I’m doing it again.  I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”  Carolina turns her tumbler idly on the desk.  “You’ve been having more trouble in the meetings lately?”

“No, same as ever.  It’s just been getting…more complicated.”  Kimball rests her chin in her hand.  “It’s nothing new.  I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fair enough.”

Kimball’s gaze flicks up to Carolina before flickering back down to her desk.  “Washington asked to be assigned more missions now that he’s not training the Captains anymore.”

Carolina folds her arms and leans back.  “Did he?”

“I have no reason to say no, not that I'd want to.  Doyle loves him, and he’s familiar with him.  I think it might make him a little more agreeable when it comes to mission priority if Washington is vouching for it.”

“Wash might not always agree with _you,_ ” Carolina points out.

“If it’s not just Doyle disagreeing with me, then I can handle being wrong.”  Kimball straightens back up, and the way her face changes is painfully familiar.  “I’d like to ask you your professional opinion.  I don’t know how he operates in the field; how does he work?”

Carolina tilts her head contemplatively.  “Wash is…efficient.  He’s a professional, you can trust that.  He’s most effective with other soldiers; don’t make him go solo, he doesn’t do well with it.  At least partner him up with a couple others.”

“You were his leader for a long time.”

“Years ago.  He’s definitely changed.”

“For the better?”

Carolina taps her fingers against her arm.  “That depends on your perspective.”  _Harsh, Carolina._   “In a lot of ways, yes.  Better for him.  Not always better for trying to accomplish his objective.”

“Would he abandon a mission?”

“I don’t think so, not because he’d run into any difficulties or anything like that.  Wash is tenacious.  -unless he was faced with sacrificing most of his squad, then he would.”  The analysis feels cold even to her so Carolina hurries to add, “But as for his skill, he’s second only to me.  He’s a phenomenal shot and he has a good head for strategy.”

Kimball is nodding along, staring down into her glass without drinking.  Probably for the best.  They’re trying to finish off the scotch they’d brought back from the bar but it’s taking an awful lot of tolerance to continue choking down _that_ swill.

“What is it?” Carolina asks.

“Nothing, just.”  Kimball finally picks up her glass and downs it, reaching for the bottle with a cough.  “- _mm,_ something Captain Grif said to his squad after the last mission.”

“With the rockslide, right?”  Carolina nods along with Kimball.  “It was good thinking.”

“It was,” Kimball admits.  “It’s just that some of them reported what he’d said to them on the way back.  That he’d drop a mission objective in a moment if he thought it would get them killed.  That they might’ve been conditioned to sacrifice themselves, but that wasn’t how he was going to run his squad.  I had a few transfer requests out of his squad for that, but…word must’ve gotten around.  I’ve had quite a few more asking to transfer _in._ ”

“Oh,” says Carolina, because she doesn’t know how she should react.  Rather, she knows how _she’d_ react, but it’s pretty clear that Kimball is torn.

“Most of the transfers in are New Republic personnel,” Kimball sighs.  “I know the reputation I have.  I know what- I know what our losses have looked like, especially over the past few years.  It’s been bad.”

“You’re worried your men won’t be willing to sacrifice for the greater good.”

“I’m worried they’re tired,” Kimball mutters.  “This alliance with the Federation might be what we’ve needed to do to survive, but it’s been a blow to morale.  We’ve been dying for so long for our beliefs, and now we have to act alongside people who’ve killed our friends, our brothers and sisters.  I can’t just tell them to let that go.”

“You’re going to have to,” Carolina says sharply.  “You don’t have a choice.”

“I _know,_ ” Kimball snaps, before drawing back and pressing a hand to her face.  “I know that.  Logically.  It doesn’t make it any easier to _do_.”

“No,” Carolina admits.  “No it doesn’t.”

The silence they fall into is uncomfortable.  Carolina reaches for her glass and knocks it back, refills it to a finger and downs that too.

_Slow down there, tiger._

“This scotch is lousy,” Carolina grumbles.  Kimball snorts a laugh into her hand and that’s good enough for now.

 

* * *

 

The look on Wash’s face when Carolina heaves Caboose over her shoulder is priceless.  He’s like a terrified mother hen and honestly, he looks so close to what he was during the Project that she can’t help but do it a couple more times.  She pays for it when Caboose finally catches on to what she’d been trying to demonstrate for weeks and she ends up flat on her back on the mats, but the pride that wells up when he sticks out a hand to help her to her feet makes up for the ache.

“Wash, look at this,” she says before starting her reps hanging from Caboose’s arm.  She can see it there in his face, a flicker of jealousy, which is kind of hilarious considering he’d foisted Caboose off on her anyway.  Why did he want her to train him if he didn’t want it to _work?_

_You’re being an asshole._

What?  No she’s not.

_Trust me, I know assholes.  I **am** an asshole.  You’re being an asshole._

That sticks with her for the rest of the afternoon, through the evening and on into the following day.  Epsilon is blessedly quiet, keeping mostly to himself as he assists with her daily tasks.  She has an assignment today, something that gets her out of the city and she’s endlessly grateful for it.  She needs to see something besides walls surrounding her on all sides, besides the stifling press of so many _people_ all around her.  She didn’t realize how on edge she was until she steps off the Pelican into the perfect, blessed stillness of empty isolation.

Carolina flexes her fingers inside her gloves.

The objective is simple: reclaim the watchtower.  The building itself isn’t of any importance, but the geographical location is strategically placed.  If Charon controls the area they can move alien tech, men and supplies between several hotspots easily, using the cover of the thick jungle and notoriously bad weather to hide their activity.

“Simmons did good work, rooting this place out,” Carolina says idly because she knows how much it annoys Epsilon to be reminded of his miss.

_I didn’t miss it, dammit!  I was just- look, they specifically set it up so I would **temporarily overlook it** -_

Carolina scoffs.

_Shut up._

 The watchtower is staffed with a skeleton crew, but they all have armor markings she doesn’t recognize.  Elite soldiers, maybe?  It doesn’t matter; she’s taken on much worse, with less equipment at her disposal.

_‘Equipment,’ huh.  Does that include me?_

“No,” Carolina says sharply, because he might be ribbing her but she doesn’t want to shoot back something for him to misinterpret.  It’s incredible, the lack of communication that can happen between people inhabiting the same brain.  “You’re my partner.”

_…well don’t get all mushy about it._

It could be her imagination but as Church matches her armor color to camouflage her with the rest of the forest, Carolina thinks she feels her implants warm up, just a little.

 

* * *

 

“Caboose, are you enjoying yourself?”

Caboose stops, right there in mid-pull up and Carolina is getting to a point where she both admires and hates how he can stay in such goddamn great shape.  She’s in great shape too but he doesn’t even _try,_ the little shit.  “Enjoying myself doing what?”

“Training with me.”  She tells herself it’s not about her ego, it’s not about her feelings.  And it’s not, mostly.  She’s just.  Started noticing a few things.

Caboose drops down from the bar, giving her a befuddled look.  It’s not much different from his usual look.  “Sure.”

‘Sure’ isn’t very encouraging.  “I mean, is there anything specifically that you’re interested in?  We can add additional modules-” Oh no, his face is going blank, he’s checking out, “What do you _want_ to learn from me, Caboose?”

Caboose’s brow furrows even further.  “Aren’t we just training?”

“I’m supposed to be teaching you things that focus on your strengths.”  Carolina rubs her forehead.  “I’ve been using basic training regiments until I figure out what your strengths _are_ , but so far I haven’t gotten a read off of you.”

“I am a _great_ listener,” Caboose says proudly.

“Yes, ah, Donut told me that already.”

“I am also good at being beat up.”  Caboose stretches his arms over his head.  “Tex used to punch me and kick me and shoot at me all the time, because she said it was funny when I got scared.”

Carolina had heard of this from Wash and the other sim troopers, that Texas had been to Blood Gulch on multiple occasions to check up on the Alpha.  She didn’t know that she’d gotten to know Blue Team so well though.  She’d just assumed that Texas had associated with them the same way she’d associated with the Freelancers; as a satellite, a destructive force that only swept in when she was needed or ordered.

Epsilon’s extremely complicated emotions on the matter of Texas aside, Carolina still can’t completely banish the instinct to treat her like an enemy.  And while Carolina realizes that Texas would probably never have actually outright _killed_ Caboose, she’s still surprised to find her fists curling protectively at the idea of Texas getting her kicks out of terrifying this poor kid.

“So, Texas used to smack you around for fun,” Carolina says.

“Yup!”

“Did she ever really hurt you?  Like, break a bone or something?”

“What?  Oh no, not too bad.  No.”  Caboose tilts his head back in thought, hands on his hips.  “She said she was making me stronger because we’re all a bunch of weaklings and also she hates my face.”

“Sure sounds like Texas,” Carolina mutters.  She regards Caboose closely, leaning her weight back on her leg.  “…Caboose, we’re going to try something, okay?  I’m going to hit you, here in the chest, and you tell me if she hit you harder or softer.”

“Are you going to be a mean girl?” Caboose asks nervously.

_It’s a thing Alpha told him; two types of girls, mean girls and regular girls except there’s  no such thing as r- look just go with it._

Carolina makes a note to _mock the fuck_ out of Epsilon for this later.  _It wasn’t me!_ “No, I’m going to be a regular girl.  This is just to help both of us get an idea of your limits.”

They gear up in sparring pads, which is a novel experience.  They’d never used protective gear in Freelancer, unless their armor counted but when someone else is driving several hundred pounds of force into your face because of it, one has to question just how much protection it provides when _everybody_ wears it.

Carolina sticks to open-handed strikes, drives her palm right into Caboose’s chest and when he doesn’t even flinch she hits him harder.  “No no, harder than- _oof._ ”  Caboose doubles over, grabbing his gut.  “Agent Carolina, you hit pretty hard too,” he wheezes, and Carolina feels a little better.

“You can really take a hit, kid,” she notes appraisingly as he straightens up.  Maybe he really _is_ more like Maine than she’d thought.  She’d assumed because he wasn’t even a little aggressive that he’d be terrible at the typical ‘heavy’ role, but she can work around that.  All that mattered was his _motivation._   He doesn’t have to be angry to be effective; she doesn’t have to teach him how to tear through people.  All he has to learn how to do is subdue.  “Caboose.  You remember what I said about learning what we can do so you can keep going out into the field?”

“Oh, yes!  I remember.”

“How do you feel about judo?”

“That was a great movie, you know, that girl was so inspiring.”

Carolina grins.

 

* * *

 

When Carolina had implanted Epsilon shortly after seeing York’s journal entries, he’d been unstable.  He’d had episodes, moments of layered whispers that crawled through her brain like ants until he’d managed to put himself back into order.  “How many people _are_ you,” she’d asked incredulously and he’d laughed, said something about that being the question of choice from ‘aquatic’ people and it had been such a strange thing to say that she didn’t push it.

She knows now that he’s not just Alpha, he’s _all_ of them.  He’d picked up on her unease with his voluntary schizophrenic episodes and had made an effort to keep the chatter to a minimum, but she’d still sometimes pick up on when he was talking to himself.

Like now.

_-should’ve been talking to him from the start, still need to-_

_-OT our fault, we’re not going over there god damn it, she’ll go when she’s ready-_

_-about her or about you?  You know the correct course of action.  Studies show that interpersonal-_

_-nough with the studies D, I can’t take it, I can’t **take** it-_

“Epsilon, _I_ can’t take it.  I need you to shut up.”  He goes abruptly silent and Carolina feels the pull, the drag like a riptide, where she is the shore and he is the sea and he takes everything out with him.  It’s unpleasant.  “Stop, stop.  I didn’t mean you had to go.”

“I can’t control myself right now,” Epsilon mutters from her helmet’s speakers.  He’s probably wedged himself into her suit’s hardware.  “Just.  Just let me do this.”

Usually Carolina would argue.  Something about leaving him alone to ruminate felt like a bad idea, set her on edge, but she’s got enough on her plate to waste time worrying about Epsilon’s various neuroses. 

“That idiot,” Carolina mutters under her breath as she stalks into the hospital. 

Honestly, she should’ve seen it coming; Wash was always coming back from missions banged up.  She’d thought it was carelessness at first when he’d just started, but reviewing helmet footage just revealed that no, he’s actually that unlucky.  He also had a worrying tendency to jump in front of things for his teammates, which would then put _two_ people out of commission because someone would have to drag his ass over to evac.  She can’t remember how many times she’d lectured him on providing _smart_ cover, not just taking a bullet meant for someone else.

He’d locked down his armor, at least.  Smart thinking.  Dr. Grey said it probably saved his life.

Peering into Wash’s hospital room reveals Tucker already there, bowed over the bed with his armor piled up nearby, clutching whatever of Wash he can hold without hurting him worse.

Carolina ducks out.  Grey said he’d be fine.  She’d known that, because inevitably Wash always makes it through everything for better or for worse, but hearing the steady tones of the heart monitor helps to calm her nerves a little.

It must not have the same effect on Epsilon because she can feel his tension, his terror seeping back into her limbs all the way down to her fingers and toes with every blip.  She peels away from the door and paces, ten tight circles in the hallway before taking off to find somewhere quiet to deal with this.  ‘Somewhere quiet’ turns out to be a storage closet; Carolina locks the door, sits on a crate and contemplates having one of these things refitted for her own personal use considering the frequency with which she finds herself in them.  “Church,” she says insistently when he still doesn’t respond to her obvious invitation to talk.

“I’m- you’re breaking my concentration.”

“Then stop concentrating and talk it out with me.”

“ _Talk-”_ The laugh Epsilon gives is mean, ugly and strained.  “Ha.  _Talk it out._ I’m fine- but okay.  Let’s talk it out.  Let’s- let’s talk everything out, does that sound good guys, does that sound like a great fucking plan?”

“You are behaving irrationally.”  Delta’s voice is like prying open a physical wound, because she expects to hear York’s follow it even when she knows it won’t.

“Epsilon, don’t,” Theta murmurs.

“ _Agent Carolina,_ best of the fucking best, demands an explanation!  Who am I to say no?”

Her voice rings back at her, _If we’re going to use this equipment, **any** equipment, then we need to know how to care for it._

“So is this just maintenance due?  Just fucking _cleaning out the pipes?_ ”  Epsilon’s tone changes suddenly, “-sorry.  I’m sorry.  You already said- you already said.  I know.”

“You were listening to that?” Carolina whispers.

“Alpha picked things up.  All the time.  The Director- the Director didn’t know.  He _listened._   He knew everybody.  Even after they locked him up he- he listened to help remember, maybe they did know, maybe that made it worse when-”

Carolina shakes her head, hands gripping her knees.  “Focus.  What does that have to do with Wash?”

“I was made because- because Wash and Tex died.  Didn’t die.  Because they _lied_ and said they did.  And then they gave me to Wash and I- I knew what I was doing, I _knew_ what it would do-”

“Epsilon,” Carolina sighs.

“He was _my_ Freelancer.”  A whispered confession like Epsilon has to cut it out of himself.  “I was supposed to be his _partner_.”

He knows there’s nothing she can say to that.  The Freelancers- well, North and York at least, they’d told her how their fragments had felt about their responsibility to their agents.  She still remembers Delta exasperatedly telling York to _don’t drink that, you don’t know where it’s been,_ she remembers Theta deploying the bubble shield without instruction when North had gotten shot through the knee.

Carolina never got the chance to ask her own about it.  She hadn’t had the twins long enough.  The most potent memory she has of them both is how they’d screamed into her head, how she’d woken to their frantic apologies, and how Maine- _the Meta_ had torn them out at their roots.

“You can’t change the past,” she says instead, surprised to find her voice steady.  “What happened, happened.  And I don’t know what you can do to try and fix things.”

“Sometimes there just isn’t a fix,” Epsilon murmurs.  Carolina remembers flicking a lighter up an elevator shaft and she hates it, she _hates_ it, but she has to agree.

 

* * *

 

Kimball isn’t available to drink when Carolina comes around, so she wanders back in the direction of the barracks with her hard-won six pack in her hand and contemplates how sad it would be to drink alone.  Epsilon has more or less offlined in an effort to put himself back into serviceable order so she’s running desperately short on people to talk to.  She considers, for one terrifying moment, going to find Dr. Grey before she realizes that heading over to see her when she’s this emotionally vulnerable is just _asking_ for the doctor to catalogue all of her many, many issues.

“Oh, Agent Carolina!”

Carolina looks over to see Caboose carrying a cooler and trailing behind the Reds.

“Uh.”  She looks down at her six pack, then back up at the sim troopers.  It’s strange, seeing all of them out of armor at once and together; even Sarge is without his customary helmet and she realizes with a start this is the first time she’s seen his face.  He looks just like she imagined he would.

Caboose cocks his head to the side.  “Are you going to come too?  We are having a kegger.”

Hearing the word ‘kegger’ come out of Caboose’s mouth is almost as surreal as seeing Sarge out of his armor.  “A _kegger?_ ”

“Not exactly a kegger,” Grif drawls, “since we couldn’t find a keg.  But we _did_ find a shitton of old beer.”

“And we figure, hey, everyone’s upset about Wash almost blowing himself up for the millionth time, so, why don’t we all go drinking and talk shit about him?”  Simmons shrugs a shoulder and he’s already got an open can in his hand, which is what Carolina attributes to him saying an actual full sentence to her without stammering.

“I don’t think I should.”  She’s technically their superior officer, right?

“So are you just going to drink that beer by yourself?” Grif shakes his head and tsks.  “Sad, sad, sad.”

Hearing her own thoughts come out of Grif’s mouth annoys her more than anything else, so she scowls.  “No I wasn’t.”

“Yeah you were.”

“You should drink with us, Agent Carolina!”  Caboose shifts the cooler up onto his shoulder and offers her this weirdly blinding grin.  It’s weird because as much time as they’ve spent together out of armor, she realizes she’s never seen him look so happy before.  “We are also celebrating because the doctor said that Washington will be okay.  And I am so happy that he’ll be okay!”

“Tucker’s not joining, so we have an open chair,” Simmons offers.

“An _aqua_ chair!  Look, it’s perfect for ya,” Sarge pipes up.  “Unless you’d also like to go sit at Wash’s bedside, probably also cry and recite poetry to ‘im.”

“Tucker is _not_ reciting poetry to Wash,” Carolina gasps as she unknowingly takes a few steps forward.  Just to make the conversation easier.  They start walking again and she jogs to catch up.

“Not _poetry,_ but he’s definitely talking to him while he’s unconscious, like this is the fucking _Titanic_ or some shit.”  Grif reaches for her six pack and she lets him take a beer and crack it open.  “It’s pretty pathetic.  Weather forecast says somebody’s gonna get their dick sucked once they’re out of the hospital.”

Simmons shudders. “Grif, _no._   I do _not_ want to think about either of them sucking dicks while I’m trying to get drunk.”

“What, you wanna think about someone _else_ sucking dicks?”

“ _Grif,_ ugh!”

 

* * *

 

“It was Homecoming.  _Homecoming._   Have any of you ever been to Texas?”

Grif belches and kicks up his feet onto the cooler.  “Who cares about Homecoming?”

“It’s a big deal,” Carolina insists.  “Very big deal.”

“It’s _Texas,_ everything’s a big deal in-”

“Grif hush,” Caboose scolds, plucking his straw from his CapriSun and dropping it into his open beer can instead.  “I want to hear Agent Carolina’s story.”

“Thank you Caboose.”  Carolina leans forward, elbow on her knee with her can dangling from her fingertips because she’s going to make these assholes _understand_ why this is an issue.  Six beers and a tequila shot ago she hadn’t cared as much about this but now, this shit, it matters, and they gotta know.  “It’s a very big deal.  I made my date’s garter and he’d made me this huge gorgeous mum-”

“Wh-hat the fuck are those?” Simmons laughs from the ground.

“Mums- you don’t know what a mum is?”

Grif snorts, head tilted back.  “How about your date was wearing a _garter belt?_   Was it sexy?”

“It’s not- no.  Have you all seriously not heard of mums and garters?”  When she can see another patented sim-trooper ramble brewing by the way Grif struggles to pull himself up and Simmons rolls onto his stomach, she waves a hand.  “It doesn’t matter.  The point is that- the point’s that he wasn’t _there._ ”  She glares down at the beer dangling from her fingers.  “For any of it.  I paid for everything myself because he called it an ‘obnoxious waste of time and money.’  Which fine, okay, it is.  But it was _my_ waste of time and money.  It was the one thing that was important to me that wasn’t important to him first.”

“Ahh, yeah.  I know that feeling.”

Carolina looks up.

Simmons flops onto his back and he waves a hand.  “Gotta follow the _plan._   If you don’t follow the plan, it’s eighteen years of their time and money _wasted_.  It’s so important, y’know?  Their time and money.”

“Simmons here is our resident expert on fucking awful dads,” Grif supplies.  “He’s got all the basics covered, and then some.  Right?”

Simmons points to Grif.

“Let’s see, just going down the list, what’ve we got?”  Grif leans over to rest his beer on the concrete so he can start ticking off on his fingers.  “Perfectionist?”

“Check.”

“Judgmental?”

“Check.”

“Hated you and all your likes and dislikes, called you a disappointment with alarming frequency, locked you in your room when you disagreed with him on literally anything?”

 _“Chhhhhheck.”_   Simmons rolls over again and fumbles for Grif’s opened beer, slurping from it.

“I don’t remember a lot about my dad,” Caboose pipes up cheerfully.  “But he’s dead.  Yeah he died a while ago.  I dunno when.  He wasn’t home with us.”

“Sounds like dad problems to me.”  Grif kicks open the cooler and fishes out another beer.  “Mine?  Fucked off the second he saw my sister.  I don’t even remember him.  I probably blocked it out, because he turned tail and ran and we didn’t even see so much as a child support check from him since then.”

“Donut’s dad used to hit him,” Simmons calls from the ground.

Grif gestures to Simmons with his beer.  “Donut’s definitely got the ‘shitty dad’ thing on lockdown.  I’m pretty sure it’s a requirement to be in the army; if you have daddy issues, you’re either enlisted or a hooker.”

“I don’t think that’s a requirement for either of those things,” Carolina snorts, though she finishes her beer before it gets warm.  “So…what.  Everybody sitting here has daddy issues?”

“Sister, we’ve got a _club._   Donut’s in charge of mixers, Tucker’s a sometimes-member because he at least _saw_ his deadbeat father once in a while.  Everybody’s a member, ‘cept Caboose on account of not remembering his.  Oh, and Sarge.”  Grif nods in the direction Sarge had disappeared some time ago.  “But I’m pretty sure that’s because he’s never had parents.  I think he just sort of started existing spontaneously, screaming about the glorious Red Army and dreaming about the day he’d put a foot in my ass.”

She can feel them looking at her when she laughs, but they must be too drunk to make a big deal out of it because nobody says anything and when she looks back up, nobody’s staring.  Or maybe they hadn’t been staring at all.  Maybe- maybe this can be normal, maybe she can have this again, something like-

_“The sibling rivalry thing?  Totally orchestrated, **since birth.** ”  York tilts his bottle at North’s retreating back as he chases after his twin.  “North was telling me that their parents were always doing the comparison thing between them.  He can’t succeed at **anything** without pissing South off now.  I mean, not that it’s her fault; you go through that for years, ‘why aren’t you more like so-and-so,’ like, who else can you blame?”  He finishes his beer before leaning over and plucking another one from the box._

_“Yeah, I guess so.”  Carolina sighs and passes over the bottle opener.  “Makes me think I’m lucky, being an only kid.”_

_The look he gives her is knowing.  “You’ve got your own issues.  We’ve all got ‘em.”  York gives her that smile, that tilted half-grin that he thinks make him look incredibly roguish but really just makes him look goofy.  Loveable, but goofy.  “Did I tell you about the time me and my cousin said we were gonna get married? **Do not laugh** ‘Lina, we were three-!”_

-something like a family.

“You know,” she says as she holds out a hand, bolstered when Grif leans forward to pass over a fresh beer, “my dad was uh.  He was the Director.”

It takes a moment for the gravity of that to settle between all of them, probably because they’re all buzzed at the very least.  Caboose doesn’t seem to get it, judging by the way he keeps sucking his beer through the straw, but Grif clues in and raises a brow.  “Wait, that guy we helped you hunt down?  _That_ Director?”

“That’s the one.”  Carolina chugs a third of her beer, insanely grateful that Epsilon isn’t listening in on this talk.

There’s an uncomfortable silence that follows that and she wonders if maybe she’d offered too much, too soon.  They have their own group, they have their own ties; they don’t want her bludgeoning her way into their little family, not after how she treated them, not after what she did-

“Okay, _she’s_ new charter president,” Simmons sighs, curling up on his side.

“You’re not allowed to give that position up without a unanimous decision from the board,” Grif tells him, and Simmons whines.

“That doesn’t…bother you?  That I hunted down my own father?  That I’m the daughter of the one responsible for everything you’ve all gone through?”

Grif shrugs.  “I mean, it could.  But who gives a fuck?”

Carolina sits back in her lawn chair, flabbergasted.

“Yeah, who gives a fuck?”  Simmons taps his beer against the ground like a gavel.  “As current unwilling charter president, I’m outlawing giving a fuck about that.”

“I concur,” Caboose chimes in.

“Caboose, you aren’t even a member.”

“Well I am a guest, and it is rude to ignore your guest’s vote.”

“Welcome to the Blood Gulch Daddy Issues Club,” Grif sniffs, giving Carolina this look that makes her wonder why she ever thought she was any better than they are.

Before she can start getting too close to that uncomfortably tight knot of emotion, Sarge comes barreling back with perfect comedic timing so he can shout, “Grif!  You son of a bitch, if you drank the last beer-”

Grif points at Carolina.  “She did it.”

“What!  I-” Carolina looks at her can before offering it up sheepishly.  “Sarge, I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was the last one.”

“Ahhh, keep it.”  Sarge walks over to slap Grif upside the head.  “Better spent goin’ to you than to this waste of oxygen and hops.”  He surveys his men with his hands on his hips.  “We gotta clear out soon anyway.  My men’ve gotta be up bright an’ early tomorrow morning, since I’m taking over their personal training!”

“ _What,_ ” Grif squawks, choking on his beer.  Simmons mumbles and rolls over.

Carolina laughs again, _twice_ now in front of other people, and she helps Caboose and the Reds gather up the cans and dump them into the cooler, which Caboose hefts up onto his shoulder again.  “Agent Carolina, since you are drunk I’ll walk you back to your room,” Caboose says graciously.

“I’m not _drunk,_ ” Carolina protests, “and I don’t need anyone to-”

“Just let the big Blue idiot walk you back,” Sarge grunts, and when she looks over he crooks a brow and jerks his chin at Caboose in what’s probably the least subtle hint she’s ever received in her life.

“Right,” she says, shaking her head.  “Sure, okay.  Thanks Caboose.”

Caboose had only drank two beers since he wasn’t fond of the taste, but on the walk back Carolina finds out that he likes the kind of fruity drinks mixed in bars, that have candy syrups and sodas and enough vodka to incapacitate a horse.  “Donut makes those really good,” Caboose informs her importantly.  “It’s a shame he couldn’t be with us tonight but he doesn’t like beer anyway.  He likes whiskey!  I don’t like whiskey.  It burns on the way down.  But I like being drunk sometimes, if I am happy during it and if I’m with friends.”

“I’m having a hard time picturing you drunk,” Carolina admits as they make a stop to deposit the cans in the cooler at the recycling center next to the barracks.

“Yeah, me too.  There’s not a lot of time to be drunk when you’re in the army.”  Caboose leans the cooler against the side of the building and turns to Carolina, tilting his head as he regards her carefully.  “Agent Carolina?”

She must be more drunk than she thought; the barracks feel both too close and too far.  She can feel Epsilon finally stirring in the back of her mind, tentatively rousing himself from the depths of artificial unconsciousness.  When Caboose doesn’t follow up with a question she turns around to prompt him again (he needs that sometimes, the reminder that they’re talking) only to pull up short when his big arms go around her and his chin rests atop her head.

She freezes.  Epsilon snaps to attention at her panic before he drifts into the background with a snort of amusement, leaving her alone to traverse this new and terrifying experience.

_Dramatic._

“I am sorry your dad made your important thing so unhappy for you,” Caboose murmurs above her head.  That tight knot of emotion from earlier pulls a little tighter, like a muscle that just won’t crack and relax already, and Carolina feels a lump rise in her throat at the sincerity in his voice.  Like he _knows._   “Maybe once we’re all done fighting people, we can have our own Homecoming dance and then you can have your important night here instead.  And we will buy your dress for you and take pictures and do the things he was supposed to do.”

An image of her presenting a garter made of toilet paper and bullet casings to Kimball pops into her head unbidden and Carolina barks out a startled laugh, shoves her face against Caboose’s chest to muffle it and wraps her arms around him in return.  He rubs her back, obviously confusing the sound for a sob, and says quietly, “There, there.  You will be the prettiest girl at the dance.  Donut can do your makeup and I will paint your nails because I have lots of practice.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Caboose,” she snorts, patting his back in return and pulling away.  She reaches up and claps her hands to the sides of his face.  “Y’know, you?  Are actually a really good kid.”

“Thank you but I am an adult,” Caboose tells her pleasantly.  “And I do not like babies.”

Carolina pats his cheek and steps back.  “That’s good to know.  Can you make it back to your own room?”

“Yup, I won’t get lost, I promise.”

He’s absolutely gonna get lost.

Caboose messages her fifteen minutes later with **im lost :(** and a picture of a stray cat.  Carolina coaxes Epsilon back to sleep, pulls her boots on and heads out into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i still cannot believe mums and garters are a thing


	3. 12 Real AF Struggles of Women Who Never Cry

They have their first real fight shortly after Wash gets out of the hospital. It’s stupid to categorize it like they’re highschoolers dating instead of her trying to hammer some actual battle prowess into that thick skull, but there’s no other way to say it. They’d been getting along. They’d been making progress. Now they’re fighting.

The morning starts out poorly. Caboose is late to training and Carolina can’t pry out of him a decent reason for his tardiness. She asks if he took his pills and he gives her attitude, _of course_ he did. His lip first thing in the morning doesn’t do much for Carolina’s mood either so she shorter with him than she usually is. Things that he’d allow to roll off his back dig in, she can see it, and as he tenses up so does she.

“Caboose, _stop getting distracted,_ ” she finally snaps. He just stares up at the ceiling from where she’d thrown him for the sixth goddamn time, like he has no intention of getting back up again. “You’re not even here! If you can’t be bothered to try then I’m not wasting my morning on you. Go run out whatever’s in your system and come back when you feel like respecting me and my time.”

Caboose’s response to that is to roll over facedown on the mats and ignore her.

“Get up.” When he doesn’t move Carolina stands over him. “Stop lazing around. We already talked about this and it’s not up for discussion again.”

Caboose says something about coleslaw into the mats and snaps her last thread of patience.

“ _Caboose!_ Get the hell up!”

“You should be using your indoor voice because we are indoors!” Caboose hollers at the ground.

“Do you realize how insubordinate you are right now? I could court-martial your ass and nobody would blame me for it! You’ll be stuck here in the city without anybody to talk to because you’ll be in the _brig_ until the hearing!”

Caboose shoves himself up onto his elbows, as affronted as she’s ever seen him. “You’re going to tie me up and put me underground?! That is _not_ fair, there’s nothing on fire and nobody is even bleeding!”

Carolina throws her arms in the air. “ _Fire_ and _blood_ are not the _minimum requirements_ to justify a court-martial!”

Caboose scowls and lays back down on the mats and Carolina sees red. She wishes she hadn’t told Epsilon to offline and rest for the day. She can’t ask him for help _now,_ wake him up and beg him for assistance when he’s trying so hard to put himself back in order.

Caboose won’t get up and Carolina isn’t going to stoop to dragging him up like an errant child. “This is unacceptable,” she snarls at the back of his head. “I’m done. Everyone else treating you and your military career with kid gloves is no excuse. Get back to your quarters when you’re finished with your tantrum.”

And she spins on her heel, gut burning, and marches right out of the training room.

The argument sits sour in her gut all day; Carolina can’t stop turning it over in her head. It’s not _her_ fault he was completely unresponsive, it’s not _her_ fault that he couldn’t conduct himself professionally, or even just congenially. He’s never had an issue with how they trained before so for him to have an attitude like that all of a sudden is ludicrous. She would _never_ have tolerated that kind of disrespect back in the Project.

Carolina spends ten seconds in silence before she realizes she was waiting for Epsilon to correct her, because of course she has. From South, from Maine, York, _Wyoming_ for Christ’s sake. She’s been accepting of people giving her shit her entire life.

Face burning, Carolina rummages through her footlocker before withdrawing what’s left of that horrible scotch and heading out to see Kimball. When she finds the general’s office empty she makes her way to their bar and then as a last resort, Kimball’s quarters. It occurs to her when she knocks that she’s never shown up unannounced and that with how late at night it is, she might be-

The door slots open and Kimball stands there, hair rumpled and silhouetted by a dim light behind her, in an oversized sleep shirt that is absolutely a man’s.

Oh.

“Uh,” says Carolina. The bottle slips in her grip so she cups a palm to the bottom of it. How stupid. This is why she should call people first before just barging into their lives, to avoid this sort of disappointment. “I’m- Sorry, I should’ve- I should have messaged you. I didn’t mean to-” She turns to leave.

“Wait!” Kimball’s hand snaps out and closes on Carolina’s elbow. “What’s so-” She looks down at herself. _“Oh god,_ no, it’s not what you think. These are my father’s. I don’t- I’m alone.”

“Oh.” Good, so now relief and humiliation can just battle for dominance instead of her just having to deal with one or the other. If Carolina feels one more thing, she may as well spontaneously combust. “Still. You seem like you’re ready to sleep.”

Kimball nods toward the bottle, or the armor, or maybe just Carolina as a whole. “And you don’t. Come in.”

Carolina strips down to her survival suit and they end up sitting on Kimball’s bunk together, Kimball cross-legged and leaning against her pillow and Carolina half-perched on the edge, ready to take off running at a moment’s notice in case anything goes disastrously for whatever reason. Without glasses they end up passing the bottle between them and grimacing because really, honestly, it doesn’t get any better no matter how much they drink. Carolina hates wasting though, and she imagines with her background that Kimball must hate it too. Or maybe she’s too polite to ask Carolina to throw it away.

Or maybe they’re both masochists. Yeah actually, that one makes a lot of sense.

Something about Kimball being so rumpled makes her even easier to talk to. As the General she’s charismatic, she’s authoritative and if Carolina were honest, she’s everything Carolina wishes _she_ was. But here in this room, the lamp on her nightstand casting long shadows and her hair a certifiable wreck, Kimball looks like someone Carolina can talk to. Kimball is looking more and more often exactly like someone can talk to.

“I must be doing something wrong.” Carolina drinks. “It’s got to be me. He’s never acted like that with me before, so I must have done something. Was it the drinking? It must’ve been the drinking. I made myself too familiar when I should’ve stayed distant. Fraternization rules-”

“Stop, stop.” Kimball wrenches the bottle from her. “Look, I’ll agree with you about retaining some authority, but the Reds and Blues have always been a special case. They were your friends first long before you all joined this fight.” Kimball drinks and winces. “I don’t think it’s anything you’ve done. From what I understand, Caboose doesn’t act that way with anybody. Well, except maybe Tucker.”

“Is- it can’t be the armor color.” Something that ridiculous really _could_ be within Caboose’s line of reasoning. He must just have an unnatural hatred of aqua and he’s just now remembered she wears it too.

Kimball laughs. “I wouldn’t even be surprised.”

Carolina groans and drops her head into her hands. “I shouldn’t have volunteered to do this.”

“Why not?”

Carolina glances up. Kimball lounging in her oversized pajamas, drinking directly from a liquor bottle should not be as sexy as it is. “I feel like I’m just wasting my time.”

Kimball rests the bottle on her leg. “Hasn’t he gotten better?”

“At close combat, but what good is that if he’s not good at anything else? Or if he _hates_ it?”

“What are you trying to _do?_ ”

That’s easy. “Make him a better soldier.”

“Why him?”

“He’ll be a valuable asset.” But parroting what Epsilon’s told her is annoying somehow, like she can’t seem to function properly without him. She’s got to have more reasons than just what she’s been _told._ “And because if he’s effective on the field he’ll be good for morale, his own and for everyone else’s. He’ll be less idle and less destructive. He’ll need less supervision, which would free up everybody who gets tasked with babysitting him all the time.”

“It sounds like you think he’s a nuisance.” Kimball doesn’t say it with any sort of inflection, but Carolina feels the sting like an insult anyway, even if she can’t deny it. Before she started training him, if there was one sim trooper Carolina would have never wanted to go on a mission with it would’ve been Caboose. She doesn’t miss the way the others talk about him either; left to his own devices, he’s a walking disaster. “Carolina, whether it’s working or not, I can tell you the statistics. Incidents involving him have taken a nosedive since you began. I don’t know if that’s because he’s wearing himself out like some kind of puppy or because he actually _is_ learning, but I don’t think you should sell yourself short.”

Carolina nods slowly and takes the bottle back for a drink. Was this like what it was supposed to be like in the Project, with command being honest and kind without babying her? Every time she talks to Kimball, it just brings it home how terrible a leader her father was.

“Am I an asshole?” Carolina asks, gripping the bottle by the neck and balancing it on her knee. She bends over herself, so tired, feeling the weight of training Caboose, of Epsilon’s fraying sanity and Washington’s penchant for almost dying pressing down on her. War, she can handle. She can handle the ever-constant struggle to survive, she can handle gunfire and explosions and violence. She can’t handle the quiet beep of a heart monitor, or the piled-up whispers in the back of her head. “I hear it on good authority that I am.”

“Would that good authority be Epsilon’s?”

Carolina looks over at Kimball, then takes another drink.

Kimball sits up straight and reaches over, plucks the bottle from Carolina’s grip. Sets it on her nightstand. Her hand rests over Carolina’s arm and Carolina basks in the warmth of it as Kimball leans closer, ducks her head, meets Carolina’s eyes with her own and says to her so gently, “Yeah. You’re an asshole.”

…did she hear that right? “Ex- excuse me?”

“I said you’re an asshole.” Kimball’s lips twitch. “Just like me. And Doyle. And every single soldier on this planet. All of us, every last one of us, we’re assholes.”

“Is this your way of cheering me up?”

Kimball leans back but her hand stays. “‘Asshole’ is just a word you call someone you disagree with. So are you an asshole? Yes, probably sometimes, just like everybody else.”

“Some people are never assholes,” Carolina murmurs.

“Bullshit. All people are assholes sometimes. Even the kindest people you can imagine.” Kimball leans back in and reaches up to tuck a stray lock of Carolina’s hair behind her ear. “Do you know what you are _all_ the time? You’re driven. You’re passionate.”

“Don’t,” Carolina whispers, heart squeezing tight in her chest. She can’t accept this. She can’t let Kimball think these things, not when she hasn’t proven herself yet.

“You take on tasks that other people won’t,” Kimball continues easily. Her hand moves to tip Carolina’s chin up. “You _care._ You care about things like justice and retribution. You’re like those old time superheroes, Carolina; you don’t need a reason to do anything except that you believe it’s the right thing to do.”

Carolina looks down, then back up. “You see all that?”

Kimball smiles. “Among other things.”

It seems impossible. There can’t be that much to her, not anymore. Carolina hasn’t known anything except how fight tooth and nail for victory for so many years that she’d forgotten that there are other things in this world, other things she can _do._

When she leans in to kiss Kimball, she tastes caution and hope and shitty, shitty scotch.

“I’ve been wanting to kiss you for weeks,” Kimball tells her when they part.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I thought you might have to do it first.”

Carolina turns that over in her head before reluctantly agreeing that she’s probably right. “Do you mind if I sleep here? With you? Actual sleeping, of the REM persuasion.” God, and now that she’s suggested it actually _sleeping_ in the same bed as someone else again sounds like a dream come true.

Kimball laughs and presses their lips together and Carolina’s heart sings for it, in minor and major keys. “Fine by me.” She pulls Carolina against her and beneath the covers and Carolina is treated to an all-access pass to a truly fantastic set of breasts, her cheek mushed up against Kimball’s chest as she slings an arm around her waist. They cuddle up and Carolina revels in the warmth of just being with another person like this, so intimate and close and when Kimball taps off the lights, she feels like here, into this darkness, she can say anything.

“I haven’t been with someone in a long time.” It’s a warning, maybe. _I’m bound to screw this up. I’ve done it before._

“Mm?” Kimball, because she’s wonderful, knows the perfect thing to say. “What was the last one like?”

Carolina feels her eyes burn and she presses her face against Kimball’s chest, her father’s shirt. “A wreck.” _They_ were a wreck. Stupid for each other and no idea how to handle it in the middle of a Project that pitted them against one another for arbitrary results. She was obsessed with perfection and he’d been obsessed with her, until he wasn’t. The second they found their own causes to fight for, they’d fallen apart. Carolina would be lying if she said she didn’t spend her nights wondering just how much of the blame for that she should shoulder. “We didn’t trust each other when it mattered the most. I don’t know how much of it was my fault, but my- who he was to me, he-”

“It’s okay,” Kimball whispers.

Carolina hadn’t realized she was crying until she sniffs, hard, and she holds Kimball as tight as she dares. “He was an asshole too.”

Kimball’s hand comes up to her hair and strokes it, along Carolina’s scalp, down her neck and shoulders. “Yeah,” she says, the sound of her sympathy seeping into Carolina’s skin like a salve, “I’ll bet he really was.”

 

* * *

 

Grif and Simmons find out that there are mines buried behind the southern wall and somehow manage to avoid dying. Carolina makes herself responsible for the removal of the rest of them, Epsilon humming in the back of her skull as he scans and searches and complains about her going too slow. It would be obnoxious, except that he also throws up a shield whenever he hears the faintest click.

“You know, this protectiveness is really cute of you,” Carolina muses aloud as he dismantles the shield tile by tile.

 _Shut up, I’m looking out for the both of us here_. _You try not being wound up when you know exactly how much concussive force each of these things has._

“Simmons knew.”

 _Yeah, and look at him! He’s a goddamn mess!_ Epsilon highlights an outline on her HUD. _There. Last one._

She digs it up as carefully as the others, cracking the paneling as per his instructions and disarming it to add it to the pile to be either repurposed or properly disposed of. “I wonder how nobody found these until now. Or even _knew_ about them. Sloppy.”

 _That’s what happens when a civil war goes on for generations._ Epsilon projects an avatar at her shoulder once the danger has passed, his processes slowing down to something more relaxed. “Shit gets buried.”

“Nice metaphor.”

“Thanks.”

Carolina tilts her head and waves a hand at the clearing squad near the door. They head over and begin collecting the mines, loading them up onto dollies and wheelbarrows to deliver to the armory for dismantling. “How are you feeling? Honestly. Don’t deflect.”

“Ugh,” Church groans, tilting his head back. “I’m _fine._ It was ages ago.”

“It was a pretty bad episode.”

“Well I don’t have pretty _good_ episodes, so actually it was just the same as usual. Not a big deal.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?” If only she could get Caboose to live in her head for a couple weeks. Maybe then she’d know how to communicate with _him_ this easily.

“You do _not_ want Caboose living in your head, trust me. He’d draw on all the walls.”

“I said no deflecting.”

“Hey, it was _your_ runaway train of thought.” Epsilon shuffles his feet. “What’s there to talk about? The past is passed. Sometimes there’s no fix.”

“Have you told _Wash_ any of what you said to me?”

“No,” Epsilon says softly.

Washington’s implantation back in the Project was during a pretty tumultuous time. Texas defected and attacked Wyoming, York went with her. Everyone suspected everyone; not even North and South were on each other’s side. And then there had been Maine-

By virtue of being the only fixed point in an explosion, Washington got lost in the debris, literally and figuratively. Carolina had only just woken up from her _own_ medically-induced coma when all of this started happening but if she were honest with herself, things had been falling apart since long before the crash.

“You should tell him.” Carolina starts hiking back up onto the patrol path. “You never know when you won’t be able to.”

Epsilon vanishes his avatar as she reaches the south gate. _You’re awfully melancholic these days._

“Maybe I’m just finally acting my age.”

_Hag._

“Brat.”

 

* * *

 

"It’s most likely because I changed his medication.”

Carolina stares at Dr. Grey, who continues tapping away at her tablet. She lifts her current patient’s bedsheet and peers underneath. “Hmm. Not good.”

“N-not good?” the cadet asks nervously. “Am I gonna lose the leg?”

“Only if I’m lucky!” Grey huffs and drops the sheet. “You’re on the mend. But that’s _terrible_ news for me, because now I have nobody to test my new prosthetic on! Drat.”

Carolina imagines she and the cadet are wearing similar expressions. “Dr. Grey. You were saying about Caboose’s medications?”

Dr. Grey glances over at her, surprised. “What? I told you. I changed them.” She tuts in exasperation, like Carolina had come to her for the sole purpose of not understanding relatively simple concepts. “We’re still in the process of experimenting to see which combination will be the most effective. The captain wasn’t on medication at _all_ before because, I imagine, the treatment of AI scarring is still so experimental. Also because you people seem to have a habit of getting stranded places with limited supplies.”

“Sorry,” Carolina says dryly.

“Not your fault! Well, sometimes. _You_ do it to yourself on _purpose_ from what I hear, something about _making good on promises_ or _he must be stopped at all costs_ which really just results in you living off the land, completely unable to focus on self-care… But that’s beside the point!”

Carolina tamps down her offense as firmly as possible. She’s getting really, really good at it. “The point being…?”

“The _point_ is that while he adjusts, he’ll likely suffer from a few side effects. Uncharacteristic mood swings, nausea, headaches, so on and so forth.” Suddenly Dr. Grey’s attention snaps sharp and focused directly on her. “Have you noticed anything? Feedback is important. Especially tell me about any chest pains, because _that_ is rare and also possibly fatal! _Probably_ fatal.”

“He’s been irritable.” So she has reason now at least, though that doesn’t solve the problem of her wanting to kick his ass for it. “Uncooperative.”

“That’s normal. Give him a few days to balance back out. I’m sure he’ll apologize, he’s _very_ particular about manners.”

Sometimes Carolina wonders what her face must look like when she talks to the doctor. So many expressions. So much disbelief. “ _Caboose._ Particular about manners.”

_No actually that’s true. He doesn’t like people being rude and he doesn’t like being rude either. Y’know, to his own screwed up values of what counts as rude._

Because Epsilon is more often than not right about what Caboose will do, Carolina isn’t entirely surprised when her student comes to see her after a few days of skipping out of practice, decked out in his workout clothes and pulling nervously on the drawstrings of his sweats. “I was very rude and I am very sorry,” he says down to his shoes in a small voice.

“Dr. Grey told me she was switching around your medication. Do you think that’s why you were so irritable that day?”

Caboose nods, then shakes his head. “I still shouldn’t be mean to nice ladies.”

Carolina has never, ever described herself as anything even within the ballpark of ‘nice lady’ but if that’s what Caboose wants to call her, she’ll let it slide. “Were you also having headaches? Stomachaches?”

After a moment of hesitation, Caboose nods again.

She scowls. “Caboose. Next time something like this happens, you need to tell W-” Carolina works her mouth for a moment before closing it and staring up at Caboose, six-six, unshaven and shame-faced. “I want you to tell _me,_ ” she finishes quietly. “Both as your teacher and as your friend.”

Caboose finally makes eye contact. “My friend?”

“Aren’t we friends?”

“Yeah.” Caboose shifts his weight before angling himself toward the door. “Do you want to come see the medicines I take?”

Epsilon hums quietly in her head and Carolina steps forward. “Sure.”

She’s seen the inside of Caboose’s quarters before. It’s a curious mixture of chaos and order; he has places where he keeps his things, but no specific categorical system that she can see as to why something is where it is. It must make sense to him because he navigates his quarters easily, plucks up some bottles from the mess in his footlocker and spreads them out on the bed to show her. “This one is the little blue one, like Church. I take this one uhh, when I’m supposed to.”

_Morning only. Vyvansen. He’s up to 50mg a day._

Carolina tilts her head.

“Thiiiis one is the white one that I have to take a lot. Church makes my helmet remind me so that’s pretty good.”

_Hyderganine, 1mg three times a day. He used to be on Pentox._

“And this one I only take when I am very, very tired and can’t sleep because we don’t have a lot and Dr. Grey says she can’t give me any more. I take uh, two of them.”

 _One._ “One, Caboose,” Carolina repeats automatically.

“Oh right.” Caboose gathers up his bottles and dumps them into his footlocker, kicking it shut. “Do you know about that one, Agent Carolina? Yeah it makes me dream weird. Or be awake weird sometimes, if I take it too early. Last time I dreamed I was on a spaceship.”

“You’ve been on a spaceship many times, Caboose,” Carolina says wearily.

“Yeah but not while I was _dreaming about it!_ And! This one was very round. Very round and full of green people, like Tucker but not because they didn’t try to take Church away from me and they didn’t say dumb things and they didn’t talk about stuff that some people in the room don’t understand.” Caboose waltzes away from his door without locking it so Carolina leaves it alone, just because she’s pretty sure he won’t know how to get back in if she _did_ lock it. “I don’t like Tucker dreams.”

“Why do you dislike Tucker so much?” Not that Carolina could blame him if it were for the conventional reasons, such as Tucker’s perverted personality or his tendency to act like a complete and utter child when faced with anything that wanders outside of his comfort zone.

“Because he is a _best friend stealer,_ ” Caboose tells her sternly, like she should already know this. “And he is annoying and dumb.”

“You know, technically _I’m_ a best friend stealer,” Carolina says, maybe because she’s curious to see his reaction. “Almost literally. I almost _literally_ stole Church. What d’you say to that?” _Stop it._

Caboose sniffs importantly. “I will allow it.”

 _I hate you._ Carolina suppresses a grin. “So why am I the exception?”

“Because you are Church’s sister.”

All the humor that had been bubbling up bursts as Carolina and Church both come to a screeching halt in her head. _What the fuck did he just-_ “What are you talking about? I’m not his sister.” Epsilon pulses with embarrassment and Carolina stops, planting her feet. “ _Church?_ What have you been telling him?”

Caboose gasps and claps his hands to his mouth. “ _Is Church with you?_ CHURCH CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

“ _Caboose,_ do _not_ shout at me, he can hear you fine. He just can’t project when I’m not in armor.”

Caboose is practically vibrating with excitement. “Church! Have you been seeing me practice this whole time?! Oh my god! I was spending time with you _and_ Carolina! I am so excited, it is like we were having best friend times together the whole time and _I didn’t even know!_ ”

Oh god, now she feels bad. Now she feels so guilty because this scruffy fluffy headache of a soldier isn’t even _angry_ about being deceived. _Yeah welcome to my world._ “Caboose, he just, he um,” _You don’t even need to make an excuse, he doesn’t care._ “…he. Says hello.”

Caboose presses his hands over his heart. “ _Hello Church,_ ” he whispers, leaning way too close. Carolina leans away. “I am so excited. I’m so happy.”

 _God damn it._ Carolina rubs a hand down her face. “There are so many things wrong here that I don’t even know where to start.” No wait, she does. “Caboose? Why did you call me Church’s sister?”

Caboose tilts his head. “Because you are. See- because, like this, because your names both start with C.”

“That is the worst reasoning I have ever-”

“ _And_ because he is the fragment of the Church who was based off your dad. That is like a brother.”

Carolina pauses. “…all right. Okay, that’s a little less-”

“ _And!_ Because he loves you.”

 _Oh my god. Oh my fucking god._ “Church, shut up. Caboose, explain.”

Caboose holds up a hand and starts ticking off his fingers. Well- he never actually makes it past ticking off just his first finger. “He is with you _all the time,_ which is what people do when they love someone. Like me and Church, who I am with all the time in my heart.” _Ohhh my god._ “And he does things like yells at you when he thinks you are not doing things right because he loves you and wants you to be safe, like he does at me.” _I hate him so fucking much._ “And he sits on your shoulder like a tiny light person, like a parrot for a pirate if a parrot was a person, and parrots love pirates so people love pirates and people.” _I hate you also for not stopping this. This is a_ _ **betrayal.**_ “And because he gave you a nickname. That is a Church thing he does when he loves people. He will call people buddy or rookie or ‘you fucker’ and he calls you C.”

How should she even respond to that? “I cannot believe you just cursed.”

“Yeah, it’s okay if I’m quoting it.”

 _Look- Look, he’s not actually right about- I mean did you hear that, he’s so stupid, he’s not-_ Carolina folds her arms and stares up at Caboose. “So, because you think I’m Church’s sister, it’s okay that you hardly see him.”

“Yup.”

“ _Why?_ What’s special about being someone’s sister?”

“Oh boy,” Caboose says, and the gentleness in his tone surprises her, “Agent Carolina, sisters are one of the most special things in the entire universe.”

Epsilon’s protests fade to an awkward, embarrassed hum at the base of her skull as Caboose turns away and heads back for the training room. The sudden quiet in her head leaves Carolina too much room to wonder how she should feel about this, about possibly being someone’s _sister_ and having that kind of responsibil-

“Agent Carolina, we are already late!” Caboose has his hands on his hips and is staring at her impatiently.

…what a little brat. “Yeah, I’m coming.” Carolina reminds herself to knock his ass down extra hard.

 

* * *

 

“We have a talking schedule.”

Carolina stares up at Wash.

He goes red and shifts his weight, looking away even as he scoops the barbell out of her hands and settles it back on the rack. “It’s, y’know.”

“I _don’t_ know,” Carolina says with an air of incredulity, likely because she’s incredulous. There are multiple things about that statement that mystify her. _You and me both._

“It’s-” Wash makes a sound and flaps his arms. “I’m trying to do what you said! The stuff, about communication. I figured if we just, you know, dedicated a specific time to it…”

“You took what I said about communication in a relationship and decided that making a _talking schedule_ with _Lavernius Tucker_ was the correct course of action.”

Wash tilts his head back and groans. “Was it a stupid idea? He threw it in my face. Literally, chucked the datapad at my head, like a frisbee.” He demonstrates. “It was a good throw too, except it was _at my head._ And I mean he came back later and said we could try it but-”

“Wash, stop.” Carolina sits up and plucks her towel from the weight rack, patting down her neck. How is she supposed to respond to this? He’s obviously looking for validation. But it’s such a dumb idea. “You’re a nerd,” she says at last, because that’s at least as affectionate as it is mocking.

“Do you think it’ll work?”

“It’ll work if you two _make_ it work. Or maybe it won’t, I don’t know.”

Wash groans and sinks onto a weight bench, burying his head in his hands.

“Stop being so neurotic. Look at who you’re even going after, Wash; you think _Tucker_ is going to be any better at this than you? I’d bet you a month’s pay that if he’d ever had a relationship that lasted over four hours, he had to consult a doctor.” _Nice._

“That’s gross,” Wash mumbles into his hands.

“And?”

“And…probably true. All he ever talks about is sex.”

 _Okay I am so not sticking around for this, bye._ “I hadn’t noticed.”

“But he still- he’s so much _better_ at this than me,” Wash laments. “Was I this bad before?”

‘Before,’ he says. Like that doesn’t have a hundred different implications attached to it. “You were awkward before, sure.” Carolina sits down beside him and leans forward, elbows on her knees. “But what’s the problem? He knows you pretty well by now, I think.”

Wash gets this pensive look on his face and says, “Maybe _that’s_ the problem.”

“You know that’s not true.” Carolina nudges his arm. “You’re really not bad at this. You just always talk yourself into thinking you’re bad at things. You did it all the time in the Project.” Carolina scrunches her nose when Wash just blinks over at her blankly. “…really? You were on the board, Wash. Consistently. You never got knocked off.”

Washington sits up straight and scoffs. “You and I both know that thing was rigged.”

This must be what Kimball felt like that night. Carolina reminds herself to send her something, like flowers or whatever well-adjusted people send to other people to show their appreciation and gratitude. “Wash, I saw everyone’s stats. _Everyone’s._ You were good. You just kept telling yourself you weren’t good.”

Washington gets up and paces a few steps away, plucking up his water bottle. “I don’t know,” he mutters, uncapping it, “it’s not the same.”

“It’s the same.”

“It’s really not.” Wash shrugs a shoulder. “I annoyed you guys, right?”

More times than she can count. “We all annoyed each other. I don’t know how many times I came within an inch of breaking South’s teeth, or ripping Wyoming’s mustache right off his face.”

“Yeah, but-”

“ _Wash,_ ” Carolina sighs, leaning back on her hands, “what do you want to hear?”

“I don’t _know,_ ” Wash protests, “I’m not really _looking_ for anything, I just-”

They both startle when Dr. Grey bursts in through the doors like a fury untamed and points a bloodied finger at Washington. “ _What_ are you doing?”

Ooh boy. Her voice is two octaves higher than usual and sweeter than sugar. The terror on Washington’s face is obvious so maybe Carolina can help smooth this over. “Dr. Grey, it’s fine. I’m keeping an eye on him.”

Dr. Grey turns her focus onto Carolina instead and Carolina realizes she’d just outstripped Wash for ‘biggest sacrifice for fellow soldiers.’ This definitely beats a grenade dive. God, did she really storm over here looking like that? How many poor cadets has she scarred today? “Also, why are you covered in blood?”

“Dramatic effect.” Dr. Grey snaps off a glove and blood spatters onto the sleeve of her scrubs.

“Congratulations, effect successful. _Whose_ blood is that?”

“ _Agent Carolina,_ ” Dr. Grey insists, voice practically dripping syrup. The full name. A red sun rises. “From what I understand, Project Freelancer operated under a particularly harsh training regimen, yes?”

Again with that prickly feeling. People digging into their past, analyzing it under a microscope without ever having _been_ there. That’s one thing the sim troopers get right, Carolina thinks as she glares at Dr. Grey. They don’t pretend to understand things that they clearly can’t. “Dr. Grey, that’s none of your business.”

Something about her steely tone must have resonated with the doctor because instead of pushing back she just tilts her head, expression going calm and considering. Carolina doesn’t much like that look either (reminds her too much of the Counselor, and Epsilon stirs at her unease because of course he never _actually_ offlined) but it’s probably better than the doctor attempting to do whatever it was she was _going_ to do.

“I suppose it isn’t,” the doctor says finally, and it’s so passive that Carolina feels like she’s been wound up for nothing. She glances at Wash, who looks just as flabbergasted. _I don’t know either, I would’ve thought she’d try to slam dunk you. Doc 2.0 here doesn’t exactly have a reputation of being emotionally charitable._

“No, it isn’t,” Carolina agrees slowly, staring hard. Where is she going with this? She must have some other kind of agend-

“Would you mind if we had a word?”

 _There it is._ “We’re in the middle of something.”

“Oh, I understand.” Dr. Grey takes a seat at a lat pulldown. “But as this applies to _both_ of you and since you are always _so busy_ I’d like to talk now, while I have you both available. And Epsilon also?” She nods before Carolina can even answer. “Yes, I know. You might not be aware of it but you have this look you make when I'm _guessing_ he says something so I’m sure he’s keeping a running commentary.”

_God, she’s creepy._

Dr. Grey points. “Like that. _Annnnyway!_ Please. It won’t take long. It’ll be largely painless.” She gestures to the benches across from her.

Washington meets Carolina's eyes and she waits for him to object, but he shrugs. “I’m game if you are, boss,” he tells her, and it’s the ‘boss’ at the end that convinces her to sit. She can’t make him deal with the doctor alone.

Dr. Grey waits for them to settle. “Listen. The issue here is that I’ve noticed something with the two of you that while not exactly _unique,_ is definitely more pronounced than usual. Both of you look at me like I’m your enemy.”

Carolina sits up ramrod straight at the accusation, but then a hand rests on her knee for just a moment as Washington leans forward on an elbow. “We haven’t had good experiences with doctors,” he says to her, voice steady and calm. What the hell is this?

“I understand.” Dr. Grey rubs her hands together idly. She's still got blood spatter on her arm. “And I want to make sure we are _perfectly_ clear with each other. When I issue treatments or ask questions, I am _not_ seeking to control you or learn things to hurt either of you.”

 _Bullshit._ Carolina feels caught between Washington’s unexpected calm and Epsilon’s broiling mistrust. She’s never outright _distrusted_ Dr. Grey, she just enjoys her privacy and Grey doesn’t seem to understand boundaries. Not in the same way as the Counselor had ignored them, but it’s still disconcerting and it’s not strange to be on guard against it. Lots of people hate therapists, it's not unusual.

“Carolina?”

“What? What is it?”

Wash looks concerned. That’s not good. “You all right?”

“Just…thinking.” Does she really look that distracted when she’s listening to Epsilon? Better work on that.

“Let’s do this.” Dr. Grey copies Washington’s forward lean and it's weird to see her hold herself like a soldier. “Instead of me inferring everything from your files, how about we begin a dialogue? Once a week, my office, time and day your choice. You can both come, you can just one of you come; as long as I see each of you on a semi-regular basis, it doesn’t matter to me. In exchange, I will _not_ address anything regarding your pasts or the Project outside of that room. That way, you can mentally prepare yourselves and we can keep all discussions to a specific time and place.”

“A talking schedule,” Wash says aloud, faintly amused. Carolina gently digs an elbow into his side and he rubs the back of his neck.

“That's what I propose.” Dr. Grey tilts her head toward them.

 _She could just not mention it at all and then never ever talk about it anywhere or anytime._ Something about Epsilon’s reluctance sparks something in her and Carolina speaks before thinking. “What about Church?” _Whoa hey no don’t mention me, I don’t want any part in this!_ “I don’t think joint uh, _talking schedules_ would work out very well if Church is coming with me.” _I’m_ _ **not**_ _going with you, god damn it! I didn’t sign up for this!_

“What he does is up to him. AI psychology is a _bit_ more complicated! I can’t say I’m as much of an expert, but I have a few extra hours tonight. I could brush up.”

“I’ll talk about it with him.” _Let’s not._ “In the meantime- fine. I’m in, if it means you’ll stop hounding us during training.”

Dr. Grey holds up a finger. “I’m still your _physician._ And Chief Medical Officer of Chorus! So anything pertaining to _physiological_ treatment goes _without_ compromise.” She points her finger at Washington next. “That goes triple for you! _You_ are always in my hospital. I’m getting sick of your face!”

Wash sighs. “Thanks, doctor.”

“Put that arm in a sling if you insist on staying in here. _Uh ah, no arguments!_ A _sling._ Restrict its use. Even if you aren’t _consciously_ using it, you’re still likely using it without thinking, am I right?” Grey must read the realization on one of their faces because she nods firmly. “I thought so. A sling, for _at least_ the next two weeks. You’re already straining it with everyday use and I do _not_ want to roll back your physical therapy because you’ve become impatient!”

Wash meekly says, “Yes ma’am,” and Dr. Grey pushes herself up onto her feet.

“We’ll work on everything else later. Please trust me, I do _not_ come here for my own health! I’m very busy and I don’t enjoy placing restrictions on the two best soldiers we have, but I absolutely will if it means you’ll be kept in working order. Capice?”

“Capice,” Carolina and Washington echo, and together they watch her stride out before sighing in tandem.

Carolina glances over at Wash, who is dragging a hand through his hair with that faraway look in his eyes. “Hey. We don’t _have_ to do those sessions. We don’t.”

“No, but we should,” Wash admits. “We really should, I-” He flushes. “I don’t want to- if she can help with the, the nightmares. If I’m with someone-”

It smacks Carolina across the face then, why Wash had been so open when she’d bottled up. She has nightmares too, plenty of her fair share, and she’s woken up screaming on several occasions here in Armonia alone. But at the same time she usually has Church implanted and he’s fairly diligent about waking her up before things get too bad.

Washington has no way to wake up before it gets bad. If he has a night terror with Tucker in the bed beside him- well, she understands his worry now.

“If you need me there when you go,” she starts. It occurs to her that she never finishes when she offers and braces herself. “If you need me there, I’ll be there for you.”

Wash smiles at her, tired and much older than she remembers but there’s something else there, too. A security she doesn’t remember seeing on his face before, even during the Project. “I’m all right, Boss. I’m getting ahead of myself anyway. We’re still only barely talking, so I’m probably not going to be sleeping with him anytime soon. …maybe I just want to see if letting it out works any better than keeping it in.”

“Okay,” she murmurs, gripping her knees. Wash gets up and heads over to the first aid cabinet, rummages around for a temporary sling and slips it over his head. She looks at the broad span of his back and sees across his shoulders the weight of what he carries now, the concern he has for everyone else around him. He wears it better than she does, she thinks. “...okay.”

 

* * *

 

Carolina finds out over the course of the next few weeks that, terrifyingly, Caboose has decided that he loves to hug her. At first Carolina had thought someone had put him up to it as a prank. One of the Reds maybe, probably Grif, always cleverer than he let on. When he doesn’t confess after Carolina corners him in the mess hall and terrorizes him for nearly ten minutes, however, Carolina is forced to consider the possibility that Caboose is doing it of his own volition.

Not good. Caboose is difficult to dissuade when he's doing something because he _wants_ to. Stubborn jackass.

It wouldn’t be so terrifying if Caboose wasn’t so gigantic. His idea of friendly touching consists of bone-crushing hugs, or draping himself over her head and shoulders like a blanket. When she brings it up to Washington he just laughs and says, “Yeah, he does that. It’s how he shows he likes you.”

“Oh god,” Carolina answers at the prospect of having to deal with this for the unforeseeable future. She has to put a stop to it.

The next time Caboose goes in for a hug Carolina smacks a hand right on his chest and holds him out at arm’s length. Which considering the length of _his_ limbs is still within grabbing reach, but he at least gets the picture and stops, staring down at her in confusion.

“We’re not doing that anymore,” Carolina says sternly.

“Hugging?” Caboose asks blankly.

“Yes. That. And the other things. This whole clingy thing you’re doing, you need to knock it off.”

“Oh.” Caboose deflates. “I thought you liked hugs, because you hugged me back.”

It takes Carolina a moment to recall. Right, the night they were all drinking. She’d definitely hugged him back, and then kind of pawed at his face. Yeugh. “That was then, this is now.”

“Do you not like happy touching?” Caboose asks, and even though it’s a completely innocent question Carolina still feels like she’s being accused of something.

“No- that’s fine. Just not all the time. You’re doing it literally every day Caboose, you’re smothering me.” He’s still looking at her like he doesn’t understand. Carolina smooths a hand over her hair in frustration, searching for the words that’ll get through his head. “Ask first. Okay? Just ask me before you touch me.”

And he nods so hurriedly that Carolina figures done, complete, but really she should have know better.

The next time they’re going over judo throws Caboose lunges for her arm and she feels that flare of pride that’s slowly been taking over her competitiveness because she knows, this time, he’s going to get her. His fingers brush her skin before he suddenly jerks back and says, “Agent Carolina, is it-”

Carolina grabs him and flips him onto his side. She leans over him. “What was that?”

“Agent Carolina, is it okay if I grab you?” Caboose wheezes.

Carolina presses a hand over her eyes. “Yes, Caboose, when we’re training with grappling holds _yes you can._ When I said to ask first I meant more with things like hugs and being affectionate.”

Caboose rolls onto his hands and knees and pushes himself up. “Because you don’t like happy touching.”

“No, I already _told_ you why.”

“Because you…” Carolina knows in the way he pauses that he’s going to get it wrong again, god damn it, “like _un_ happy touching?”

“ _No._ ”

Caboose flaps his arms exasperatedly, like it’s somehow _her_ fault that he’s not getting it. “Agent Carolina, I don’t understand.”

“Look. I don’t mind…hugs and things.” Yes she does. Oh god she does. She and Kimball danced around each other for months because she couldn’t work up the nerve to kiss her. “What I _mind_ is you just _doing it_ whenever you feel like without checking.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s rude.”

Caboose gasps, scandalized, a hand to his chest. “It’s _rude?_ ”

Maybe Church is onto something with the whole manners thing. She could start using ‘it’s rude’ as an explanation for a whole bunch of shit. “Yes. It’s rude. It’s very rude to touch someone without asking first.” She could tell him that it’s rude to hum the same song verse over and over again. She could tell him that it’s rude to say things that are obviously true if she’s not ready to hear them. She’s mad with power. Nobody can stop her now.

Caboose squints like he knows what she’s thinking. “But all of us touch each other all the time without asking. Grif and Simmons and Donut and Red Sergeant and Tucker and Wash and Church when he had a body, and-”

God. She has to figure out a reason or she might have to tell him things like _my daddy never hugged me_ or _you are too sincere and I feel like my reciprocation of the hug is lackluster and that brings out my competitive side which is more like my entire personality_ or _please stop being so kind because someone will come along and wreck you for it_ because no matter how understanding Caboose is, she will never let those things fall out of her mouth. “Do you see the common factor in all of those examples?”

Caboose falters, mouth moving.

“You’re all men, Caboose. Not that it’s a _thing_ with me, but it’s different between men and women. In general.”

Of all days for Caboose to be reasonably good at discerning the truth, of course he chooses this one. “I touched my sisters all the time too, and they touched me and they never asked.”

She can _feel_ her face burning. This wasn’t where she’d intended to end up when she started, she’s too old for this middle school PDA bullshit, and it’s _Caboose_ for god’s sake. Why is she the one doing this? Where the hell is Dr. Grey? “It’s different when it’s not family, either. When it comes to- to affectionate things, men and women who aren’t related don’t usually touch each other very much. Because that can mean things like- like.” God. This is embarrassing. “Like _romantic_ things, Caboose, are you understanding me?”

Caboose leans back and eyeballs her warily. “…Agent Carolina, you are very pretty but you’re _kind of old._ ”

Carolina flips him again.

 

* * *

 

“He likely sees you as a sister.” Dr. Grey passes over a cup of tea to Carolina, who really didn’t ask for it but will have to drink it so she doesn’t seem ungrateful. It was probably calculated. Dr. Grey is probably measuring her social capabilities by how politely she drinks this fucking tea. “You know, I’m really enjoying this!”

Carolina sips the tea and tamps down a grimace with years of practice shrugging off near-mortal wounds. “Enjoying what?”

“You communicating with him, coming to me with questions… It’s nice! It’s almost like we’re raising a son together!”

“Never say that again.”

Dr. Grey giggles and Carolina has to admit that this _is_ preferable to going to Church, who is indignant and smug at the same time. Or Wash, who is swiftly developing empty nest syndrome with all the extra time he has now that he’s not wrangling in Caboose’s tendencies to invite disaster upon himself and his surroundings. He’s probably using that time to fuck Tucker.

…ugh, god, why did she think that? _Ugh._

“If it really is a problem, you can tell him firmly to stop. He might not remember all the time but it’ll sink in, eventually.”

“Tell him to stop. Brilliant. How did I not consider that?”

Dr. Grey tips her cup in Carolina’s direction. “Sweetie, when someone comes into your office with a question like _why is this person who likes me a lot hugging me,_ I’m not really inclined to dig too deeply into the motivations!”

“ _All right,_ so it was a stupid question.”

“Is there a _reason_ you’re so firmly against positive physical touch with your student?” Dr. Grey asks curiously, a gleam to her eyes that makes Carolina wonder if she ever uses a recorder or if she just literally remembers everything that anybody says at any given moment.

“Does this look like our designated talking time?”

Dr. Grey sighs. “All right, all right.” She finishes her tea in a single swig, which is kind of alarming considering it’s still steaming and stands up. “I don’t really have time to get into it right now anyway. _I_ am late for an appointment.”

“When do you sleep?” Carolina asks, genuinely wondering. She’s half convinced the doctor doesn’t actually sleep at all.

But then the door slides open and of all people to see there, Carolina spies _Sarge_ poking his head in. “You ready to get goin’, little lady?”

“Be right there!” Dr. Grey sings, plucking the cup from Carolina’s fingers and dumping the contents into the wash up sink nearby. “Just cleaning up. Come on in. Oh! Maybe Agent Carolina can ask you how to get Caboose to stop being so handsy with her.”

“Whut?” Sarge’s helmeted head snaps over to fix on Carolina and for a second, she actually feels sort of ashamed. She’d told Sarge she would consult him after all. She hurriedly pulls on her helmet and seals it to her suit, standing up. “Just smack ‘im around. Though I guess you’re already doin’ that. Ahh, he just gets lonely sometimes. Needs all that fancy affirmation junk. If you wanna blame anybody for the boy bein’ so clingy, you can blame your little photonic tumor ya got screwed in there!”

Epsilon pops up indignantly, woken from his slumber by the mere mention of him like a true egomaniac. “Hey fuck you Sarge!”

“Photonic tumor,” Carolina echoes incredulously.

“Alllways leavin’. Allllways got somethin’ better to do. You know Blue, if you’d just hang around a little bit more, the rest of us won’t have to deal with his bellyachin’ all goddamn day.”

“Yeah, because _I’d_ be dealing with it.”

“Exactly! So hop to it!” Sarge holds out an arm for Dr. Grey to take when she approaches, and he points two fingers at his visor before pointing at Church. “You’re makin’ your sis a neurotic mess! She’ll be the new Simmons 3.0 at this rate!”

Carolina is still reeling from the fact that Sarge and Grey just left _arm in arm_ to pay attention to Church once again sputtering over someone calling her his sister. “Oh my god. They’re dating.”

“I don’t know _why the hell_ people keep saying-”

“How _old_ is he? I think she’s in her forties…”

“It’s not like I _go around-”_

“Church, shush,” she says absently, drifting from Dr. Grey’s office back into the hallway. “What is going on? Why is everyone hooking up all of a sudden?”

Church makes a mildly grumpy noise. “You really don’t have any room to talk, the crap you think about Kimball.”

“Stay out of there.”

“Trust me, I am. It’s disgusting. I just got this video file from Tucker, with Grif and Simmons. I’m gonna put it to _Careless Whisper._ You wanna see? One time offer.”

“Oh my god, no. Never.”

“Suit yourself. This shit’s going up for purchase in the commissary. You’re gonna have to _pay_ for it after that.”

“Church, don’t you dare.”

“Hey fuck you, you’re actually on someone’s payroll. I still gotta make a living somehow.”

 

* * *

 

Tucker and Wash come by and Carolina is determined to show off.

She doesn’t have to try too hard to motivate Caboose for it either, which is great. She just told him, “Look at that, Tucker is over there. I bet you could make him really jealous if you did your best.”

And then Caboose whispered back, “Can I hug you if I do a good job?”

Because that was Carolina’s solution to the issue of Caboose hugging her too much. She’s getting used to it, used to being completely restrained by a giant person with whom she has no familial or romantic obligation. It sounds awful like that because it _is_ a little bit awful still, but this solution serves the dual purpose of bottlenecking the amount of hugs he’ll give her and also providing the kind of positive reinforcement that he appreciates. Besides, it’s not as bad as it used to be. At least she got him accustomed to the measuring out his strength so he doesn’t bruise her ribcage.

So Caboose is motivated and determined to make Tucker look bad and as a result he moves like he _knows_ what he’s doing, which convinces Carolina that he does, he really does, and he must be ready for more. They already have a mission lined up for the next day so today was her last chance to assess Caboose and see if he’s ready for a task that generally rests outside of his caliber to handle. This just proves it, honestly. He’s ready.

Plus it’s nice to see Caboose employing the other strategies she taught him, like effectively using cover and utilizing one’s surroundings. His awareness isn’t quite up to par but she and Church can cover for that out on the field. Besides, he’ll never _really_ grow until he starts applying himself to real situations. A difficult mission is just the next step.

Watching Wash and Tucker’s jaws drop is pretty nice also.

So when she pushes Caboose into some cooldown exercises and pops up onto his back for the extra weight, Carolina goes right ahead and finalizes the personnel list for tomorrow’s mission with Caboose as her second in command. With confidence and experience will come the ability to wield authority effectively, and then he’ll _really_ begin to make good use of his rank.

“I don’t get it.” Tucker stares between she and Caboose when they head over to talk. “It’s like I’m in the goddamn Twilight Zone. What the hell is this?”

“I am _pretty good_ at fighting, Tucker. Maybe you don’t know what that is like,” Caboose scoffs, puffing up his chest. Ooh boy. Maybe she’s imparting a little more than just her military expertise.

“Ohhh bitch you did not.” Tucker rolls up his sleeves. “You little shit. I’ll kick your ass-”

“All right,” Wash says exasperatedly, stepping between Tucker and Caboose. “You’re _both_ getting much better, how’s that?”

“Some of us are getting more better than others of us.”

Carolina taps her knuckles against Caboose’s chest. “All right Caboose, let’s not get _too_ full of ourselves.” But her tone’s amused and she knows Caboose can tell, because he grins and leans on her like a dog who doesn’t understand that it’s too big to do that.

“We have a mission together tomorrow!” Caboose shouts happily right in her ear.

Wash gives Carolina this startled look she’s come to equate with _I suspect your judgment is flawed but I’m not dumb enough to say it aloud_ while Tucker just laughs. “ _Ha!_ Oh man, have fun with that Carolina! You can teach him how to punch people sure, but can you get him to punch the right ones? I’ll tell Grey to get the ER ready for when you guys get back.”

“I’ll be with him the entire time.” Carolina looks over her shoulder. “It’ll be fine. He’s ready.”

 

* * *

 

The first time Carolina went on a mission with the Dakota twins and York it had been a certifiable disaster. The twins would go off on their own without warning (too used to working as a team separate from their squad, too used to only looking out for each other) and York had been pretty concerned about knowing where everyone was at any given moment. Between York squawking about not having visual on either she or the twins and South snarling that she _has this_ and North apologizing with _I’m sorry Carolina, it’s just habit, we’ll work on it,_ she’d been ready to tear her hair out. The mission had been a failure, of course, and the Director had pulled her into his office for the dressing down of her life.

That had nothing on _this._

“Caboose, _what are you doing?_ Stop running out before I give the signal!”

He doesn’t listen. He doesn’t _listen_ , like all the practice they’d put into her delivering clear and simple instructions and him following them to the letter hadn’t even fucking _happened._ Church is a ball of numbers and rage in her head, calculating and re-calculating every time Caboose dives out of cover because he wants to _pick up a rock_ or every time he directs their squad to a place with _no tactical advantage_ because he thinks he should be doing something important.

Shit. Had she inflated his ego too much with the praise? _That’s not it, shut up and analyze later._

Carolina rolls a grenade toward an automated turret and waits for the muffled _thump_ of detonation and the turret fire to stop before she engages the speed unit and snaps from one spot of cover to the next. The other turrets round on her to and Carolina ducks her head as Church snaps up the shield just in time to deflect the fire raining down on her. _Shit! This is not good._

Carolina pokes her head up around a shipping container long enough to take stock of their surroundings. “Caboose, flip that Warthog and get the cadets behind- _Caboose no,_ don’t flip _our own vehicles!”_

 _Sorry!_ Caboose calls over the radio, voice too loud and absently cheerful. _Not my fault! Someone parked them in my way!_

“God _damn_ it!” Carolina snaps. “We’ll never make it inside at this rate.” Not without heavy casualties. They’ve already got three wounded, two cadets with bullets lodged in their legs and a third with a heavy concussion, swaying where she’s crouched beside Caboose.

_Carolina. We need to abandon the mission._

“What?” Carolina squawks in alarm. “No. Absolutely not. Call for evac for the rest of them, I’ll finish it on my own.”

_You_ _**can’t.** _ _Enemy reinforcements are on their way behind us-_

“That’s never been a problem for me.” Because it hasn’t. She’s taken out _battalions_ before, there’s no reason she can’t complete this mission on her own.

_It will be this time! Listen to me, there’s not enough cover to keep you out of turret fire while you take out the reinforcements behind us and we’re running low on auxiliary power. I can’t run the shield for much longer._

“Then _compensate,_ ” Carolina hisses out through gritted teeth. “Draw on non-vital systems-”

A bone-rattling explosion has her covering her head and she looks out to see Caboose hurtling grenades, then rocks, then their _own supplies_ from the overturned Warthog at the turrets for them to destroy. One of the turrets clips a box of ammunition and the resulting blast knocks the Warthog back over Caboose and the three injured cadets he’d dragged behind cover. Caboose pushes the vehicle back off of them onto its side.

_C. We gotta get them out of here._

“We just have to take out those defenses, if we can get those turrets offline we can-”

“Captain, wait, please don’t throw my gun!”

_Carolina._

It’s the deadly calm of Epsilon’s voice that really pierces through. He’s not panicking. He’s not fretting over Caboose or the cadets, he’s not reliving his worst fears or seeing the simulations. He’s running the numbers. He’s taking her abilities and _Caboose’s_ abilities into account.

This isn’t Freelancer. Caboose isn’t a Freelancer. He won’t just make it through if she pushes him hard enough because he’s missing that desperation, he’s missing that ferocious refusal to fail that her old team had. Carolina had thought that competitiveness he’d shown Tucker was a clear sign that she’d sewn the drive to win into him but she was wrong.

“God damn it,” she says again. Disappointment and anger flood her stomach and she snaps over to the squad frequency. “Fall back to the rendezvous point. We’re getting out of here.”

 _Are we going home?_ Caboose calls curiously and Carolina wants to clock him for sounding so unaffected, like the mission failure isn’t the direct result of him putting himself into danger and refusing to follow orders. It wouldn't do any good. He doesn't respond to yelling at all.

Carolina puts in a call for emergency evac with no small amount of shame.

The inside of the dropship is tense, the wounded cadets hissing and groaning where they’re laid out on the deck, the others silent in their harnesses. Caboose sits undaunted by the atmosphere, humming and tapping his hands against his knees like a child in a car seat.

Carolina turns away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the incredible wait for this part, everybody! i ended up increasing the chapter count because this chunk was just too large to post all at once. BUT thanks to that, the next (and final) chapter is nearly complete, and should be up in no more than a week.
> 
> thanks so much for your patience!


	4. 15 Things That Will Cure Any Heartbreak

“What happened?” Kimball asks lowly, and Carolina winces internally at the disappointment in her voice. She knows it’s not directed at her, but. Old habits.

“We underestimated the amount of automated defenses the facility had. No openings to get in and shut them down.”

“Yeah there was a lot of shooting,” Caboose muses, shifting his weight. Carolina clenches her fist.

Kimball’s looking at her, helmeted face impassive but Carolina knows that beneath it she’s looking for a sign of something other, some kind of signal. Carolina hesitates before turning sharply on Caboose. “Dismissed, Captain.”

Caboose starts. “Oh. We’re done talking?”

Carolina takes a deep breath. “You’re dismissed.”

Caboose hesitates and it infuriates her because _where_ had that discernment gone on the battlefield? Why could he hear the different tones in her voice but not reason out that he shouldn’t throw _their own supplies_ at the enemy? Why was he so incapable of applying the logic he used when he spoke to people to military situations? She’d trained him for it, she’d shown him everything she could. Where had she gone wrong? What had she failed to teach him?

“ _Leave_ ,” she says and she knows, she _knows_ it sounds bad by the way Epsilon hums warningly in her skull but she doesn’t care. She stares evenly at Caboose when he doesn’t move. “Caboose, _get out_.”

Kimball says nothing behind her and while Carolina’s grateful for the support, she doesn’t miss the way Caboose’s hands come up, the way his plucks at the fingertips of his gloves and glances between them. The silence is heavy and tense as he slowly turns and leaves the war room, the door hissing shut behind him. Epsilon lets out something like a sigh in her head. Carolina ignores it. He’s too soft. Caboose will never grow up if he’s not held accountable for his own mistakes.

Church shifts uncomfortably in her head and Carolina ignores that too.

“We’re lucky there were no serious injuries. Dr. Grey tells me everyone should pull through fine.” Kimball’s helmet tilts down. “Carolina, I can’t allow him back out on the field if this is going to be the result.”

“I know.”

Kimball watches her, then sighs and reaches up to pull off her helmet. Carolina wishes she wouldn’t. She can’t stand to see the disappointment on her face, too. “What do _you_ think happened?”

Church presses to the forefront of her mind and Carolina gives way as his avatar flickers to life. “He probably just got overexcited.”

Kimball’s expression is flat as she stares at Church. “…actually, I can see that.”

“Yeah. He gets destructive when he’s excited.”

“He gets destructive when he’s _anything._ ” Kimball rubs her forehead.

“You’re not gonna hear any argument outta me. But _you_ were the one who gave him the rank. You can always take it back, bump him back down to Private. It’s not like he’s gonna care.”

Kimball glances to Carolina, like she should know if he’d care or not and she’s surprised to realize that she doesn’t.

“Demoting him would be a bad move for morale,” Kimball mutters. “His men love him.” She paces around the edge of the table. “It would be best if we could just figure out what went wrong. Did something set him off? Was it all the turret fire?”

“Hard to tell, I mean.” Church shrugs. “Sometimes loud noises bug him. That wasn’t Caboose bugged though, that was just him fucking up _spectacularly._ ”

“Carolina, was he behaving strangely on the way out there?”

“No.” Carolina leans her weight forward, hands on the table. “I don’t understand. He was _fine._ There’s no reason he shouldn’t have performed the way we’d trained. He has no reason to choke, he’s been in plenty of battle situations before!”

“Eh,” Church pipes up. “He’s been _thrown_ into battle situations before.”

“That’s no excuse,” Carolina argues. “We prepared for this. He _wanted_ to go on this mission.”

“Yeah, he never really wants to do stuff because it’s stuff he wants to _do._ ” When Carolina levels the most furiously even look she can at Church, he holds up his hands. “I’m serious. He just does stuff people tell him to do. The kind of stuff he gets jazzed about is like…scrapbooking or someshit. He doesn’t usually get all pumped up about doing missions.”

The way that misaligns with how Caboose had boasted about the mission yesterday to Tucker makes Carolina grind her teeth. “Why didn’t you say any of this _before?_ ”

“I thought you knew!”

“Why would I _know_ that?”

“I dunno, you’ve been training with him this whole time! I mean, isn’t it obvious?”

“Carolina.” Kimball’s expression is pinched, but curious, when she looks up. “Do you want me to leave this to you?”

It’s still hard, even after all these years. Anything that even hints as a slight against her abilities still stings. She remembers that barb from Sigma in the training room, _and Agent Texas, of course,_ and she recognizes it now for the manipulation it was, but it still bothers her. “Yes,” she says firmly. “I’ll talk to him, assess his mindset. If I don’t think he’s ready, I won’t be taking him out again.”

For better or worse, come hell or high water, she’s going to get it _right._

 

* * *

 

He’s not in his quarters. He’s not in Wash’s quarters, or Tucker’s quarters. He’s not with any of the Reds or any of his squad. Andersmith offers to help her look and Carolina sends him to the city proper to search with the rest of Blue Company.

_Sorry C, not getting a ping back on his radio. He might have his helmet off._

“This is unacceptable,” she fumes.

_You didn’t exactly tell him to keep it on._

“He hasn’t even been debriefed yet, he _knows_ how this goes. He’s hiding.”

Carolina finds Washington and something about the set of her shoulders must tell him everything he needs to know, because he straightens up and orders the cadets he’s training to take a few laps. “Boss,” he greets her as she marches over.

“Have you seen Caboose?”

“Not today.”

Carolina curses, glances over at the cadets huffing their way around the track. Rests her hands on her hips and hangs her head. “I may have to regulate him to city duty only.”

“It went that badly?”

“The mission _failed,_ Wash.”

Wash shrugs a shoulder. “We’ve failed missions before.”

“Not ones like this. This one was a cakewalk. All we had to do was get in and out, but he crumbled and started sabotaging our own troops.”

“Yeah, friendly fire is kind of a thing for him.”

“This isn’t a joke!”

The cadets glance over at her raised voice and Carolina rocks back on her heels as Wash circles his finger in the air. “Not tired yet? Five more laps!” Their answering groans soften the edge of her anger a little bit. Kids. They’re all kids. “Carolina, I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re attempting to do something none of us have managed to do. Honestly, you've gotten him to do a lot more than I thought was possible.”

“It doesn't mean anything if he can't perform on the field.”

The look Wash gives her is definitely loaded. With what, she has no idea. “It still means something.”

“I need to find him, I don’t have time,” is all she says, both because she’s chickening out of going any further down a road to which she can’t see the end, and also because no, she really does have to find him. With every passing minute her urgency grows, fed by something she doesn’t quite understand. It’s not that she thinks he’ll do something stupid-

_You’re joking, right?_

-rather, something harmful to himself or others. “Who else might-” But she doesn’t have to finish. Sarge. Sarge always seems to know a little more than he-

“Church,” Carolina pipes up, “where’s the nearest storehouse with electronics in it?”

 

* * *

 

“Caboose?” Something in the room shatters and Carolina winces internally. Whatever it was sounded expensive.

“Tucker did it.”

Definitely expensive. Carolina picks her way around dismantled junk radios and half-assembled car engines to find Caboose huddled in the back, half of his armor missing, helmet god only knows where. In his hands he fiddles with a remote detonator to what Carolina hopes is nothing, considering how Caboose keeps flicking the switch back and forth.

“Caboose,” she calls again and he flinches, stares up at her before scooting around to give her his back, clutching the detonator in his hands. “…Caboose.”

“I can’t get my armor off,” he mutters. “I don’t remember where the buttons are.”

Carolina can feel the anger in her gut simmering back down to something manageable, something background. “Do you need help?”

Caboose hesitates before nodding and Carolina helps him unlock and pluck off the rest of his armor, laying it aside with the other pieces until he’s just in his survival suit, hugging his knees. “I didn’t do it,” he insists stubbornly. “Not my fault. Tucker did it.”

“Stop.”

“There was a lot of yelling-”

“Caboose, _stop._ ” Caboose falls silent and Carolina watches as he picks up the detonator again, plucking open the maintenance panel in the back and slowly begins dismantling it with a calculated precision she’d seen only when watching North field-strip his rifle.

Carolina sighs and sits down beside him. “I’m going to tell you a story.”

“Please don’t make it a long story,” Caboose mutters, snapping pieces and parts off of the detonator that don’t look like they should be removed.

Carolina draws up a leg to lean her elbow on it. “I knew Project Freelancer was falling apart a long time before it actually did, but I never did anything about it because I always told myself it wasn’t my fault.”

Caboose’s hands slow, resting the detonator in his lap.

“It wasn’t my fault my team wasn’t getting along. It wasn’t my fault missions were failing. Wasn’t my fault nobody talked to each other. I ignored everything and focused just on protecting myself, and people started to leave me behind because of it.” She ducks her head to get a good look at Caboose’s face. “They stopped trusting me with things.”

Caboose’s eyes flick over to hers, down and away, then back up as it dawns on him. It hurts to see that understanding on someone else, as much as it hurt when she’d finally realized the reason why she didn’t know _anything_ about what was going on with the Project until well after it fell to pieces.

“I didn’t-” Caboose hesitates. Clenches his fist. “I didn’t mean to- to not do it right.”

“I know.”

Caboose bites his lip before he leans over and presses his face against her arm. She lets him stay.

“You were excited,” Carolina ventures.

Caboose nods.

“You wanted to do everything right and have everyone be proud of you.”

“I want _you_ to be proud of me,” Caboose murmurs into her shoulder.

A lump rises in Carolina’s throat and cuts off anything else she could’ve said. Dread sinks into her gut, thick like sludge, seeping into her organs and limbs before it manages to reach her brain. Something about that is wrong. Something about that is familiar and _wrong._

“You try so hard to help me. And I want to keep being with everybody else, so I tried hard.” Caboose doesn’t pick up his head but she can hear his voice getting distinctly shaky. “I wanted to do a good job.”

Epsilon becomes like a stone in her mind, dense and pulsing with worry and she knows he’s realized it too.

“I’m sorry you had those sad feelings too,” Caboose continues when Carolina still doesn’t answer. “I will try harder to win and do better than I am currently doing.”

_Late nights running drill after drill, going over her stats for hours, reworking her nutritional diet for the twelfth time because the error has to be somewhere, there had to be some reason she wasn’t good enough yet. There had to be some reason he won’t approve of her yet._

“Agent Carolina, do you know what I mean?” Caboose's voice is edged with desperation at her silence and she can't, she can't take it, she can't _sit here_ and listen to this another second.

Not after what she’s done.

“I,” she starts, stops, scrambles to her feet.

_Carolina-_

“I have to go,” she chokes out and she backs away, turns on her heel and runs. The cadets hovering outside the door leap back out of her way as she charges blindly, almost slamming into the doorframe because she can barely see where she's going for all the noise in her head.

She’d made Caboose her _Project._

_< I am in the business of getting results.>_

_He could be an incredibly valuable asset in the field if he were just utilized properly._

_[-is this really about making the most of our resources, or is this something more personal?]_

Carolina's legs burn. Her lungs fill near to bursting again and again as she tears through the compound, past the barracks, past the motor pool. She has to get away from here, she has to _remove herself_ from here, before she does something terrible, before-

_'Hate to break it to you C, but you're running an experiment with controlled variables. That's pretty science-y.'_

_Everyone else treating you and your military career with kid gloves is no excuse!_

_< Agent Carolina, you are acting like a child.>_

_(He will be, for lack of a better term, a_ _**project.** _ _)_

_I’ll get this right. I’ll get this_ _**right.** _ _God damn it, I will_ _**get this right.** _

“Epsilon,” she gasps, staggering to a halt, “Epsilon, stop, stop freaking out, I can't think-”

_Carolina, Carolina, I'm not, this is you-_

Carolina feels her insides lock down like lead and she slams her fist into the nearest surface, bruises her armored knuckles against industrial steel plating before she shoves through the nearest door. The red clay cliffs of the western perimeter wall bake in the late afternoon sun, burning into her visor until it dims to compensate. Carolina paces a quick lap. Dust kicks up in her wake.

_C, you need to relax, you need to calm down._

Carolina ignores Epsilons worried thrumming, reaches up and wrenches off her helmet to feel the arid wind prickling at her face. She has to go. She has to go. “I have to go,” she says aloud, voice brittle and she climbs the ladder to the top of the wall, vaults up onto the nearby cliffs and climbs, climbs until her arms refuse to pull her weight any higher. She shoves herself into the nearest sturdy alcove she can, wedging her armor against the clay like a child hiding from a monster. She wraps herself up in her own arms and hides her face and listens to the sound of her breath gasping against her knees, sweat pouring down her face, soaking her hair.

“Why didn't you _warn_ me,” Carolina snarls, furious with so many things, with herself, that she directs it at the first target available. “How could you let me- How could you-”

_It's not the_ _**same** _ _Carolina, you're overreacting-_

Carolina slams her fist against the rocks. “Like _hell_ I'm overreacting! You know what he was like, his mindset, and you- you let me fall right into the same patterns, you let me- you let me-”

_I'm_ _**sorry,** _ _okay? I'm sorry I didn't catch it! I didn't notice, I didn't know._

Carolina chest heaves and she stares at nothing, at the middle distance, fist clenched tight against the cliffs. There's no way she can go back. “I set that up. _Me._ ”

_C, no._

“I kept playing at being his _friend._ I was- I was manipulating him-”

_No you weren't-_

“I _used_ him, his- his eagerness to please. I dangled my approval in front of his face like a fucking carrot. I did the _same thing_ he always did to me, Church, and I didn't even know I was _doing_ it-”

_That’s why it’s not the same! Sis, listen. Listen to me._

She has no choice. She’s out of breath, out of words.

 _I know what his head is like._ Carolina tastes the edge of Epsilon’s self-loathing like the cut of a hot knife. It’s a bitterness she knows will probably never go away. _I know what it’s like. And I know what you’re like. Your intentions-_

“Intentions don’t mean a _damn thing._ ”

_No they do, they really do. The Director was the one who said that, and he was wrong._

Carolina focuses on catching her breath. The cliffs lose their amber tinge as the sun sets and slowly turn dark, go blue and purple with shadows like the inside of a mausoleum. She uncurls slightly as the wind turns cold and chills the sweat on her face, tilts her head back into it and lets it whip her hair around. Her helmet is somewhere. She should get it. “…when did he say it?”

_When you were little._

“Oh.”

_You’d picked all the neighbors’ flowers, because it was-_

“Father’s Day,” she finishes. She remembers. All the neighbors had come to complain at him, and he’d scolded her and sent her to her room for the rest of the day. She doesn’t know what he did with the flowers. Probably threw them out.

_Kept them in a vase in his room. He didn’t want you to see them. Didn’t want you to think he approved of what you did._

Carolina blames the dust for the way her eyes sting. “Just like him.”

 _Yeah. He was a fucking idiot._ Epsilon shifts in her mind and becomes like water. _Your intentions were good. You were trying to help him._

“I did it the wrong way,” Carolina sniffs. “I did it completely wrong. I tried to beat him down into something else-”

_I don’t know if you noticed, but Caboose can take a beating._

“That’s not what I mean.”

_I know. But he can. And it’s not like he hated every second of it. If he really didn’t want to, Carolina, you couldn’t make him do jack shit, trust me._

Carolina draws in a shuddering breath that tastes like dry earth. The sun dips between the cliffs and casts out streamers of dying light along their sides. “But if I manipulated him-”

_He’ll forgive you._

The ladder below her rattles and Carolina starts, draws herself up in time to see a dark curly head poke up from beneath the cliffs. Caboose stares in shock before beaming up at her. “Oh! I found you!” He clambers up the rocks in just his survival suit and Carolina doesn’t think about how many bones he’ll probably break if he falls from this height with no armor. “Man, you are _so_ fast.”

Church thrums with something that smacks of _I told you so_ , the streams of him flowing through her mind like quiet little rivers. Spreading himself thin to try and calm her down. “Caboose,” she says uncertainly, “how did you find me?”

“Ah, I just followed- _ugh-_ followed you. And if I lost you I asked some other people like, hey! Did you see Agent Carolina? She is aqua and fast. And- _oof,_ and everybody knows you, so they saw you, so I followed you.” Caboose hauls himself up over the last edge and dusts his hands off, coming right over to sit cross-legged beside her. “Ahh. It’s nice up here.”

“It is.” Carolina looks out over the cliffs, the barest bit of orange gold shining between two crags like a jewel. She wraps her arms around her knees again. “…Caboose, I think I screwed up.”

Caboose mimics her posture, resting his cheek on his knee and staring down at her. “What happened?”

Epsilon presses encouragingly at the back of her mind. Carolina doesn’t know when he became so invested in getting her to talk to Caboose when he can barely stand being around him, but she supposes it’s similar to keeping a vase of stolen flowers in a bedroom. “I think…I think I’m more like my father than I wanted to be. More like the Director,” she adds, since she was never quite sure if Caboose had gotten that.

“Ah.” Caboose nods sagely. “You want to have a baby.”

“What- Caboose, no, absolutely never do I want to have a baby.”

He frowns. “Then how are you like your dad?”

“With-” Carolina sighs and pushes her bangs back. “In other ways, Caboose, do you understand?”

Caboose stares blankly at her and Carolina wonders if his perception is just a flighty thing, a state of being or some kind of aura that descends upon him at the most inopportune times. “Agent Carolina, you're a lady. Your dad was a man.”

Carolina hangs her head. “I know, Caboose.”

“And you also can't be as old as your own dad, I think. I'm pretty sure.”

“That's not-”

“And _also_ you didn't make an AI from your brain, right? You didn't do that.”

Carolina rubs her face. “Yes. You’re right. Thank you.”

Caboose is still peering quizzically at her, so Carolina just. Pats him awkwardly on the elbow before looking away. She couldn’t have expected him to-

“And when people look for you, it's not because you did a bad thing.”

The sun passes behind the rocks and Carolina blinks at the sudden lack of light, at the shadows over Caboose’s face. “…what does that mean?”

“Agent Washington told me one time.” Caboose sighs through his nose, as if recalling a great, weary journey. “He would listen to his old radio because he missed his friends so much. So when you came back and he told us you were his old friend, I was so happy. Because you came back, and now he has at least one friend back, and he didn’t even have to go looking for you because you looked for him first. That was so nice of you.”

Carolina’s vision blurs and she can’t quite blame the dust this time. “I…it wasn’t nice. I looked for him because I needed his help.”

“That’s why friends look for friends.” Caboose tells her. “I know we did a lot of fighting with each other when we first met, but that’s okay. Sometimes friends fight, too.” Caboose picks his head up and reaches over to rest a hand on her back, before jerking it away like he’d been burned. “Ah, I didn’t ask.”

“It’s okay,” she chokes out.

Caboose’s hand comes back to rest on her back and he rubs her armor, which is just silly. It’s not like she can really feel it, it’s not like she _needs_ it. “If Wash knew he could find you, I’m sure he would have looked. And when I looked for you just now, it’s because I was worried. Even Tucker, who is stupid and is mad when he should be sad, _even Tucker_ doesn’t look for people super hard unless he really cares. So nobody looks for you because they don’t like you. And I know we looked for your dad because we were upset and didn’t like him because he did bad things, but it’s not the same for you. So I don’t think you’re the same.”

Carolina buries her head in her arms before she starts crying in earnest and _really_ embarrasses herself.

The wind is cold but Caboose’s shoulders are blocking most of it, his hand huge and sturdy against her back. He scoots a little closer when the wind really begins to gust, angling himself to block the worst of it. “Agent Carolina?” he asks hesitantly.

Carolina doesn’t pick up her head. Her voice sounds wet and thick even to her own ears. “What is it, Caboose?”

“Do you think we could try to do a mission together again?”

He doesn’t even have to ask.

 

* * *

 

Carolina props herself up on her elbows over Kimball and whispers, “I think I’m turning into my father.”

“Not right now, I hope.”

Carolina smacks Kimball's shoulder. “ _Stop._ I'm being serious.”

Kimball directs a puff of air up at her sweaty forehead and stretches her arms out, rubbing her palms up to Carolina's shoulders. “I'm guessing that's a bad thing.”

Right. She still doesn't know. That's definitely a talk for later. “It's horrible.”

“Okay. So. Then we should do something about that.”

Carolina feels her heart do a little swoop. “We?”

“You and I, plural. We'll make a list of the traits you don't want to have. I'll tell you if I've noticed you doing anything like that.” Kimball tips her chin up. “I could make a list too, we could do it together. Like a bucket list, but with more self-improvement and drinking.”

Carolina snorts and buries her face in Kimball's neck.

“Hey. You know. I'm in this for a while, at least. It's not all sex, drugs and rock n' roll.”

Carolina kisses Kimball's neck, her jaw, nibbles at her ear. “There hasn't even been any rock n' roll. Or drugs.”

“I have a playlist.”

“You do not.”

“I have a sexy rock n' roll playlist.”

“Put it on right now.”

 

* * *

 

The next mission Carolina and Caboose go on is just the two of them, something quiet, scouting out a location where Carolina can keep him in arm’s reach. Everybody laughs and pokes fun at how Caboose couldn’t stay quiet to save his life. They’re right, he can’t, but he does keep it to a mumble and she shows him how to mute his helmet, so it stays in there and doesn’t blow their cover.

Caboose follows her close, _determined_ to do well, and when she holds up a fist on reflex he freezes immediately. Carolina finds out that it’s the only hand signal he knows.

When they get back Carolina teaches him the rest of the hand signals in the UNSC codebook and they go over them every day during training, before and after. She doesn’t know why she didn’t think of it before. Caboose has a hard time with words, a hard time with getting them out and organizing them in his head so of course spoken orders will get jumbled.

Caboose likes them, likes that he can translate hand movements into actions without words getting in the way. He picks them up fast when she demonstrates their meanings with her body instead of her vocabulary. Carolina feels a little guilty at first, really awkward about it like she’s training a dog. She brings it up to him directly instead of going to Grey, instead of dwelling on it for days and it’s refreshing how completely without drama his answer is. She hadn’t even realized she’d braced herself for an explosion of ego until it doesn’t come.

“It helps,” he insists, “it’s okay. I don’t feel stupid when we do it this way.”

They start doing hand signals for other things, not just for military strategy. It starts when Carolina makes up a gesture for ‘don’t touch me right now’ and Caboose makes one up for ‘I’m tired of this.’ Half of their conversations are with the movements of their hands and bodies. It’s kind of nice for her too, she realizes. Caboose babbles on about something he saw the other day, some flower or rock, and she can ignore all of it without offending him because when it comes time to hit the showers he just flicks his fingers over his hair, she nods, he goes.

When Carolina tells Dr. Grey, she gets this look on her face like she’s just _so proud_ and Carolina has to leave abruptly because they are, dear god they really are raising a son together.

Except, as they pick back up where they left off with their new changes, it’s less like raising a son and more like gaining a friend. Caboose dispenses advice like a busted vending machine, most of its contents suspect but some of it, once in a while, still kinda good.

“I hate idle conversation,” she tells him one day, unprompted.

Caboose pauses in his pushups, sending her a look over his shoulder. “Do you want me to stop?”

“Just letting you know I’m not listening.”

“That’s okay.”

“I’m not always a fan of talking.”

“Oh yeah,” Caboose grunts, getting back to his exercises. Carolina draws her leg up so she doesn’t slip off his back. “Yeah, that’s okay. Words are not always great. You don’t have to use them if you don’t want to.”

She would never have suspected Caboose of being against mindless chatter. “How do _you_ feel about words?”

“I like them,” Caboose admits, a bit breathless as they near the end of the circuit. “But they don’t always like me.”

Andersmith has really opportune timing, always showing up when Caboose says things like that and miraculously avoiding the moments when Caboose hurls a dumbbell across the room because he thought he saw a spider.

“ _Never_ do that. Never, _ever_ again.”

“I would like to point out,” Caboose insists, slinking over to pick it back up, “if there _was_ a spider, it would definitely, definitely be dead right now.”

“Yes, as well as anybody else near it.” Carolina makes a _cut it out_ motion with her hand and Caboose sighs dramatically and stacks the weights back on their rack with a little bit of attitude. Carolina can tolerate that kind of sass, though. That’s the sort that’s familiar and welcome.

 

* * *

 

Carolina goes a little stir-crazy the week Caboose is sick.

Dr. Grey seems to understand this is how she shows affection, but still doesn’t take kindly to Carolina messaging her for the fourteenth time demanding she come examine Caboose _in person_ because this _can’t_ be normal, he’s been ill for _six days._

Epsilon updates her with an air of suffering, like he can’t _stand_ to be with Caboose 24/7, like he just can’t _stand_ to report in to Carolina like some kind of around the clock nurse. She knows it’s bullshit when she walks in to see his avatar standing in front of Caboose’s sleeping face, figure dimmed so as to not wake him, hand stretched out and resting on his forehead.

Of course, the second he notices Carolina he logs off and furiously refuses to speak to her, but she saw. She knows. She teases him for hours.

 

* * *

 

Carolina and Caboose walk into the training room once he's better only to find it otherwise occupied by Tucker and Wash.

“ _No thank you,”_ Caboose cries and he grabs Carolina, throws her over his shoulder and runs halfway across the base before she finally gets her snorting laughter under control and convinces him to put her back down. “We can never go back to that place,” he tells her, voice low and haunted and she has to prop herself up with a hand on his back to keep from falling down.

“Caboose, it’s okay, I’m sure they’ll sanitize the equipment when they’re done.”

“No.”

“Do you want me to help you file a complaint?”

“Yes. I want Tucker fired.”

“Unfortunately that’s not gonna happen.”

“Then I would like him drowned instead.”

“Caboose- Wait, then what did you mean by _fired?_   Caboose, no.”

“I don’t want to go back, Agent Carolina.”

“Then let’s go for a jog and see if anywhere around here actually has any ice cream.”

“REALLY? OH MY GOD. THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE.”

 

* * *

 

A couple of the privates from Caboose’s squad approach her in the halls one day. She recognizes them from that disaster of a first mission and prays they’re not coming to her about being reassigned.

“Is there anything we can do to help Captain Caboose on the field?”

Carolina gathers Caboose’s squad together and teaches them all the hand signals she’d taught Caboose. And then she goes to Kimball and Doyle and tells them, “You put some good kids in his squad.”

“The soldiers in Captain Caboose’s squad requested that assignment,” Kimball tells Carolina, and Carolina has to wonder how much of that adoration is hero worship and how much of it is a bunch of kids seeing in Caboose what she’d only just recently figured out.

 

* * *

 

Caboose corners her one evening with a little plastic bag full of nail polishes that he probably bummed off of Donut.

“You get away from me,” Carolina warns. Something about her voice must’ve said she wasn’t serious about carrying out any of her previous physical threats, because he just edges closer as if attempting to trap a frightened cat. “Caboose? I’m not painting my nails.”

“Agent Carolina, _I_ am painting your nails,” he says very patiently, with that same ‘catching a frightened housecat’ tone. “It is practice. For your dance.”

“There’s not going to be a dance.”

“Well not if you continue acting this way, young lady!”

Carolina allows Caboose to catch her (she makes him really work for it, tells herself that it’s training) and then forces him to put on his helmet just in case he makes a sudden movement while painting her toes and she takes a swing at his head. It’s exhausting and horrible and she jumps so many times, waiting for someone to waltz in and mock her, waiting for Caboose to grip too tight and twist her foot, waiting for _something_ bad to happen but it never does. That doesn’t mean she’s any less wound up, but at least when Caboose finally pulls off his slightly dented helmet and clicks his tongue at her bruised knuckles, Carolina looks down at her toes to see a terrifyingly good job at staying in the lines given his predilection for creative license when coloring. “You weren’t lying, you _are_ good at this.”

“I do not lie about things I’m good at,” Caboose informs her haughtily, and she rolls her eyes and lets him have this victory, at least.

 

* * *

 

Wash catches wind of the hand signal thing and watches Carolina run with Caboose through a mock infiltration scenario. He offers up his cadets as opposition, with the excuse that they could use the training and also because maybe he wants them to see what Caboose is capable of. He watches Caboose disarm multiple combatants in armor without making a sound, watches him actually _react_ to things within a normal time frame without words cluttering it up and Carolina swears she sees him make a tear-wiping motion against the visor of his helmet. Too much time around Tucker.

“Well?” she asks him as Caboose bounces around the mock obstacles and picks up each of the groaning cadets one-by-one and sets them back on their feet. “Good, right?”

“It’s amazing. And he looks so _happy._ ” Wash turns to Carolina and actually reaches out to grab her shoulder, squeezing. “Thanks, Boss. I knew if anyone would be able to figure this out, it’d be you.”

Carolina doesn’t tell him, but that keeps her going for quite a while.

 

* * *

 

A huge mission comes up and Wash has to stay behind. He has to stay behind because they never leave the city with no Freelancers, just in case Charon gets desperate. Wash has been riding the pine a lot since his recovery and while he hasn’t been necessarily phased out, Carolina knows it’s because she’s been taking more missions herself and Caboose.

“Take Donut with you.”

Carolina glances up from her personnel distribution to see Washington hovering in the doorway. “…Wash.”

“Let’s not.” His voice is clipped and Carolina lets it go, because she gets it. It’s hard to be the one who stays behind, let alone staying behind on a mission you’ve already failed once before. “You need another body for your squad, right? You should take Donut.”

“Why Donut? He’s still a private.”

“He and Caboose are protective of each other.” Wash approaches her side. “They’re friends. They’ll keep a close eye on one another.”

“I see.”

“Donut’s also a surprisingly good soldier, so long as you don't ask him to strategize. He follows orders well.”

“I remember.” Carolina still recalls those three grenades landing perfectly on the Texas clones, all at once. _She’d_ be hard-pressed to pull off a throw like that. “All right. I’ll bring him along.”

“Caboose has a really slow reaction time.” Wash folds his arms. “Factor that into any plans you make.”

“Already done,” Epsilon pipes up, winking into existence at her shoulder. “Relax, I know what I’m doing.”

Wash does that helmet thing he does when he’s eyeballing someone critically.

“Shut up,” says Epsilon, because apparently he knows that gesture too.

“Anything else?” Carolina asks, only half-serious now because there’s being concerned and there’s _hovering,_ and Wash is crossing the line into the latter.

“Just. Be careful.”

“Yeah, we’ll make sure he doesn’t throw himself onto any grenades,” Church scoffs.

Carolina scowls and swats through his avatar to make it glitch. “That’s not funny.”

“It’ll be _fine_.”

 

* * *

 

“Donut!” Caboose bounces over to the soldier in pink and Donut greets him with some weird two-handed high-five handshake thing. Carolina honestly can’t tell if it’s something they’ve practiced or just completely made up on the spot. “I am so happy. We’re going on a field trip together!”

“I know, right?! I’m super excited. _But_ Caboose.” Donut grabs his hands and lowers them, staring right up into Caboose’s visor very seriously. “I want to make absolutely sure! You’re not going to unload a round into my behind out there, are you?”

Carolina chokes, Epsilon snickering in her head.

“Nobody will be unloading anything, square or round,” Caboose promises solemnly.

“All right then! I trust you- _ack!_ ” Donut does the smart thing and just goes limp when Caboose sweeps him up into a hug. He’s obviously practiced. “There there big guy, there there.”

“You are such a good friend, Cinnabon,” Caboose cries into Donut’s chest.

Donut squirms an arm out of Caboose’s steely grip to pat the top of his helmet. “Aww Caboose, _thank_ you! You’re so sweet.”

_Are we absolutely sure this was a good idea?_

“We’re sure,” Carolina affirms, sounding way more confident than she feels.

The mission isn’t an overly complex one. Since Washington’s attempt to retake the alien tech depot ended in failure, it was determined that the only course of action would be to destroy it to prevent Charon from getting its hands on any more resources. Doyle objected, but they were out of options. A small team is best; they plant the explosives, get out of the building and bring it down on top of Charon’s heads.

Meanwhile, Grif and Simmons will take their squads over to the abandoned caves and blow _those_ to kingdom come. Lots of explosions, but a lot less opposition expected over there. “Any questions?” she asks, praying that the Reds and Blue currently assembled aren’t going to turn this briefing into another one of their trademark circus acts.

“Yeah, I’ve got a question.” Grif jabs a finger in Caboose’s direction. “Are you sure bringing him along is a good idea?”

“Caboose knows what to do,” Carolina snaps, and she knows the line of her posture screams _defensive_ but she just can’t help it. Grif is kind of an asshole. If he’s going to start punching holes in Caboose’s tentatively strengthening confidence-

“No, I mean didn’t he have the creeping crud like a week ago?”

Carolina relaxes and Donut clasps his hands to his chest, obviously touched. “ _Grif!_ You’re so thoughtful and caring!”

“Shut up, Donut. Carolina, think about this.” Grif stares hard at Carolina. “You’re _voluntarily_ taking the two biggest morons on Chorus with you to raid a place Wash got blown up at. There’re easier ways to kill yourself.” He spreads his hands. “How about instead of you going with those two and probably dying, you come with me and Simmons and keep _us_ from dying?”

Simmons lifts his rifle. “Seconded!”

“Re _lax_ ,” Church snorts, popping up at Carolina’s shoulder. “Preliminary scouts showed little to no activity in the caves. They’re not gonna set anything up there anyway because we already know about them. Just place the explosives and get out and stop your bitching.”

“Easy for the guy literally parked in her head to say.”

“What can I say? I know how to pick ‘em.”

“ _Ugh_ shut up,” Simmons groans, rolling his helmet back and turning to board the Warthogs with Grif.

Carolina switches off her external mic. “Really? You know how to pick ‘em, huh?”

 _Shut up,_ Church says easily. _Don’t act like it’s not the same for you._

“Oh, so we’re not dancing around it anymore? You’re _totally_ fine with the whole 'Sis' thing now?” She feels her implants warm a little and finally, it hits her that that is Epsilon’s way of _blushing._ “I’m okay with it too, y’know. It’s all right.”

_Yeah? Good for you._

“Don’t try to act all tough.”

_**You** _ _don’t act all tough._

 

* * *

 

Just as they’d feared, Charon beefed up security at the depot in an effort to move all of the assets out of the building before they could get to it. They’d also scrambled all the security codes, which made getting inside to the warehouse a bitch and a half. With Caboose acting as explosive pack mule and Donut watching their rear that leaves Carolina on point with Church, whose frustration grows proportionate to the number of doors he has to forcibly hack.

_Bullshit, this is such_ _**bullshit-** _

“Focus,” Carolina murmurs.

_I_ _**am** _ _focusing! Shockingly since I’m a fucking_ _**numeric entity** _ _I can actually multitask pretty goddamn efficiently! You’re the one who needs to pay closer attention. Figured out why we haven’t hit any clear opposition beyond perimeter patrols? That’s ‘cause I’ve got a shitton of contacts on the motion sensors just past these doors. We’re going in hot._

Carolina turns and holds up her fist, then indicates toward the wall just outside the doors. Caboose nods and shuffles over, and Donut follows to the other side and Carolina has to agree, yeah, Wash was right. These two _are_ a really good team.

_Doors opening in 3, 2-_

Carolina snaps her rifle up to bear to find-

“… _huh?_ ” Donut peers around the edge of the double doors. “Really, there’s nobody?”

“Quiet,” Carolina hisses.

“Agent Carolina, I think they are all on vacation,” Caboose whispers. At least he’s not shouting it, that’s an improvement.

_I don’t- there was motion_ _**all over-** _

“A scrambler making noise, probably,” Carolina mutters. “Ignore the trackers. Keep your ears sharp.”

The warehouse is sprawling and has a huge, vaulted ceiling. A possible escape route, if they can get up there. Shipping crates twice her height are stacked in rows, perfectly arranged for an ambush. “Where do we need to drop this bomb to make the most of it?”

Church’s avatar winks on at her shoulder. “Center of the room. Look, this thing is probably gonna take out most of the support pillars for everything overhead. We gotta be clear by the time it detonates or we might get a building dropped on us.”

“Hear that boys? No dragging your feet. Soon as this thing is armed, we're out of here.”

“I sure hope Grif got Simmons out okay,” Donut murmurs as Caboose unslings the explosive pack from his back and Carolina snaps open the console.

“Grif is a good driver,” Caboose says confidently. “And they are in love. So I'm sure they are okay.”

“Being in love doesn't automatically make someone okay, Caboose! Haven't you ever seen _Romeo and Juliet?_ ”

“Oh yeah, but there's a lot of criticism out there? Yeah a lot of people say that it was because of miscommunication and blood rivalries.”

“Hm. Are you sure? That doesn't sound right. It was definitely a double suicide because of heartbreak.”

The sharp _crack_ of a rifle shot snaps overhead and Carolina hits the deck, motioning for Caboose and Donut to find cover. Caboose scrambles for a little while and narrowly avoids taking another bullet to the leg.

“Who the fuck fired before the signal?!”

“Sir, I'm sorry, I couldn't fucking take it anymore!”

Carolina shoves herself up, arms the bomb and slaps the countdown as several dozen mercs drop their camouflage. They're surrounded. “Church-”

_Still getting scrambled. I'm seeing over thirty, maybe- **get down,** Jesus Christ!_

A half-ton shipping crate goes hurtling over Carolina's head and slams right into a stack of pallets, sending the mercs there scattering or toppling. “I am helping,” Caboose hollers behind her, and Carolina glances to see him hefting up another crate.

Carolina shouts his name and drops her fist to the ground. Caboose nods and slams the crate down in front of him; Carolina vaults over it, searches for Donut and clears out the two mercs pinning him down so he can scramble over toward them. “There's a lot of gunfire!” Donut shouts. “I think they were gonna ambush us!”

“No _shit!_ ” Church snaps, avatar winking on for a moment as gunfire peppers the shipping crate at their backs. “Exit's over that way, we're cut off.”

“Donut, grenades,” Carolina orders, and Donut signs her a double thumbs up, of all things, before popping his head out of cover long enough to begin flicking grenades over at their opposition. “Church, find us another exit.”

“Searching.”

“Agent Carolina, is the bomb working?” Caboose asks worriedly. “Because we are supposed to make sure the clock is on-”

“The clock is on, Caboose.”

“What, _now?”_ Donut asks in alarm, hands empty. He paws around Caboose's waist when he pops out of cover and lays suppressing fire with Freckles, drawing back with Caboose's grenades as well. “We're still in here!”

“ _I noticed that,_ ” Carolina snaps, lining up a pesky sniper trying to flank them and taking him out with a crack shot right in his visor. The merc topples down from the storage racks but two more take his place and Carolina has to duck down or lose her head. “That bomb is probably the only reason they haven't used any heavy artillery yet.”

Church winks back on. “Found an exit, get ready to move!”

Carolina pulls Caboose down with a hand at his waist and stares into his visor, points at herself, at the ground. Caboose nods, barely flinching from the sparks of rifle fire striking their cover overhead. Carolina feels a wave of pride and affection so strong she has to shake it temporarily loose, lest it distract her from Church's instructions. “On my mark, ready?”

“Sync.”

“Oh, I heard about this! Sync!”

Caboose doesn't say a word.

The pause in fire is so amazingly brief that if Carolina had the attention to spare, she'd marvel at how _precise_ Church could be. She primes and tosses a grenade clear of the bomb setup to distract, shoves the sim troopers ahead of her down the winding hallways formed by high-stacked crates and storage frames.

Bootfalls slam after them and Carolina hears a shout of alarm when the mercs discover the bomb. She preps the speed unit, kicks off of a nearby crate and onto another one to lay suppressing fire on their pursuers, running along the troopers overhead.

“Over there, second exit! To your left!”

“Left, Caboose!” Donut calls, and Carolina gestures sharply when Caboose starts to go right instead.

Carolina kicks off the shipping crate, tosses her last grenade behind her and ducks into the hallway just in time to feel the bone-rattling force of the bomb detonating behind them. The doors hiss shut and lock at her back and she watches as they heat an angry glowing red with the force of the explosion, bowing outward. Donut gawks, “Oh man, now _that_ is toasty.”

“We could make s'mores!”

“D'you think so?”

Carolina grabs the boys and pulls them after her as the floors above them rumble ominously.

“Structural integrity of the building’s pretty suspect after that blast,” Church warns, dropping a navpoint onto Carolina’s HUD. “We need to make a speedy departure _yesterday._ ”

“On it. Caboose, Donut! We’re out of here, double-time!”

The security hallways are too tight to use the speed unit effectively, not that Carolina could without leaving Caboose and Donut behind anyway. The support beams above their heads groan and shudder, dust raining from the cracks spiderwebbing through the drywall and paint.

_Structure is collapsing. Thirty meters to the door._

“Hurry up!” Carolina shouts over her shoulder, tearing through the second to last security checkpoint and kicking out one of the partitions to bypass the final one, hopping over the wall and sprinting toward the complex’s magnetically barred exit. “Church, doors!”

“On it, ten seconds!”

Carolina glances back at the sound of gunfire; the leftovers of Charon’s patrol forces that hadn't eaten napalm in the warehouse enter the security hallway, making for the same exit. “ _Church-“_

“Five seconds!”

Caboose hurdles through the partition. The doors behind Carolina hiss open and Donut jumps-

_BANG._

Donut yelps and falls, a puff of blood exiting his leg. Caboose skids to a halt and spins, scrambling back.

“ _Shit!_ ” Carolina snaps, “Church, prep-”

_**Carolina!** _

The ceiling cracks in half and the weight of an entire ten-story building collapses onto their heads. “ _No!”_ Carolina screams, slams into something solid and drops to the ground. The earth around her roars, dust fills her vision just past a shimmering bubble and Carolina covers her ears until Church silences her external mic. She blinks up at the dome around her- debris cracks against flickering tiles overhead; her gasps fill her ears, her heart pounds blood against the inside of her skull; she scrambles to her feet and punches against the tiles. “Church, drop the dome!”

_**Stop.** _ _Wait- wait for it to settle-_

She doesn’t stop. “They’re _in there-!_ ”

 _I know that god damn it, but if this shield fails then you’re dead too!_ Carolina lowers her fists, panting. _Look behind you, do you see that opening? I’m going to drop the shield and boost the speed unit; go for it on my mark._

“I’m _not_ leaving them,” Carolina snarls.

_I’m not leaving them either, but you can’t do shit right now and I can’t go look for them until you’re out! Just listen to me!_

Carolina draws herself back and up, takes a deep breath. Her limbs shake with the urge to _do_ something, to _save_ them. “All right,” she grits out, “I’m ready.”

_Okay. On my mark._

Carolina crouches.

_Mark._

She snaps forward and the world blurs. Stone and steel cracks down just meters behind her and she feels Church pull away from her implants, away from her suit and vanish completely, leaving her stumbling down into a roll.

The dust drifts through the clearing and Carolina pushes herself up onto her feet, touching a hand to her headpiece. “Strike Team Bravo to Armonia,” she says lowly, hand clenching at her side as she waits for Church to return with news. “We have two soldiers down, request immediate evac. Have senior medical personnel on board; severity of injuries unknown.”

_Read you loud and clear Bravo. Medical evac is on its way, ETA ten minutes._

The seconds between that promise and Church’s report are torture. Carolina sees in the clearing dust and the rubble the reflections of her friends; she sees York’s shattered visor on the training room floor, she sees North crumpled and bleeding on the floor of a dropship. She sees a hatchet sink into CT’s chest, she sees Maine struggling to breathe through the blood in his throat, she sees Utah’s fingers scrabbling at the tiles around his head as his gasps get weaker and weaker-

_Found them. They’re alive._

All the air leaves her lungs in a great _woosh_ and Carolina leans forward, hands on her knees. Alive, alive, alive. “Status?”

Epsilon settles back into her implants. _Not good. Bullet went right through Donut’s leg. Didn’t hit the femoral artery but he’s still bleeding bad._

“Caboose,” Carolina insists. “What about Caboose?”

 _Caboose i-is-is-_ Epsilon’s voice goes rough with static, double-layered with another voice not quite his own. _**Fuck.**_ _C—oose is h-ho-olding up the building._

“Epsilon- Church, keep it together.” He’s panicking about trying not to panic, Carolina can feel it under her skin, buzzing around in her skull like a wasp nest. “What do you mean he’s holding up the building?”

_What it fucking_ _**sounds** _ _like, he’s got a support-supor-support beam over his shoulders and he’s holding it up so they don’t get crush-cr-shed._

Ice settles into Carolina’s gut. “He can’t-”

_-do that forever. No._

“All right.” Carolina shakes out her hands, clenches them, pulls Epsilon a little further into her calm to try and settle his nerves because she needs him tight, needs him focused, needs him to do the thinking for them. “Our options.”

 _Try to clear out debris._ Epsilon’s voice goes matter-of-fact, not quite Delta but close. _Runs the risk of destabilization and may end up putting more weight on Caboose. Or wait for evac. Don’t know if he can hold out that long._

“Can you get him on radio?”

_I can get Donut. Caboose’s helmet got jacked up. I couldn’t even access his implants._

“Do it.”

Donut’s voice is shaky with shock but Carolina can hear him trying to steel it. _We’re okay! Well- all right, we’re definitely not okay, but we’re not dead. Caboose saved my life!_

Carolina hears weakly in the background, _I am a good helper,_ and feels her chest constrict. “Donut, we have only two options. I can either shift debris and risk upsetting the weight displacement, or we can wait ten minutes for evac.”

Donut murmurs something to Caboose before humming worriedly. _Carolina, I don’t think he can keep it up that long._

“Then we have to start digging. Tell me the second you or Caboose feel anything shift, all right?” Carolina turns back to the pile of debris framed by the outer walls of the structure. “Church, outline the support beam over them.” Epsilon lines it in bright green, then outlines their forms in blue and pink beneath the debris as well. “All right.” She wades into the mess and gets to work.

Progress is agonizingly slow. Moving gigantic concrete-and-iron slabs takes too long and she simply doesn’t have the strength to do it safely, even with all of her armor mods. Once or twice Donut stops her because moving a chunk of concrete causes a downward slide that has Caboose sagging under the weight of the building collapsing further onto the beam.

“Church, we _need_ another option, we’re going to crush them-”

 _Fuck, I know! I know, okay- Okay._ Carolina waits a few tense seconds. Her implants warm, she can hear the onboard hardware of her suit whirring as Church utilizes all of the processing power available to him to analyze their options. _All right. We make a hole where they are. If you get the dome shield augment to Donut, I can hop into his suit and run it for him. I’ll slowly expand the shield to include Caboose and push the debris back. Then I’ll walk it over as they climb out and drop the shield once they’re clear._

“Can Donut’s suit run the shield to those specifications?”

 _I’ll make it work._ Carolina hesitates a second longer and Church rattles inside her head with impatience. _I will_ _ **make it work.**_

She mutters, “If that debris comes down while you’re in Donut’s suit-”

_We have to try._

They have no choice. “Then we do it. Show me where to dig.”

They have a hole cleared in thirty seconds, just wide enough for Carolina to unclip the bubble shield and pass it through. “Where do I insert this?” Donut asks. “Oh geez, _there?_ That’s a little…well, okay.” Carolina hears the _clack_ of armor pieces snapping together and suddenly the hole is illuminated by Church’s burning bright avatar and Carolina can see. Donut is on his side, a bloodied glove over his thigh as he tries to staunch the bleeding and Caboose is over him, huge beam laid right across his shoulders with cracked concrete and steel piled atop it, head hung low and whole body trembling.

“Agent Carolina,” Caboose wheezes, “I _fuh_ …found the heaviest thing.”

“What?” Carolina asks as Church vanishes his avatar and begins building select tiles just below the debris, expanding carefully upward.

“The h-…the heaviest thing on Chorus that I can lift. I found it.”

Carolina coughs out a laugh, strained and _painful_ like nails in her throat and she fights the urge to reach in and yank him out into her arms. “You did. You did, Caboose, it’s a ten story building. _Nobody_ can beat that. You’re the strongest.”

The tiles push up and the beam barely lifts from Caboose’s shoulders and he sags in exhaustion. Donut’s free hand flies up to press against his chest, “Caboose! Oh geez, Caboose no, you can’t go to sleep yet! I can’t walk!”

Carolina pulls at the edges of the hole, scraping away whatever concrete she can as the tiles flicker and the building above them _groans,_ lifted off of Caboose’s back at last as he slumps down atop of Donut, dead unconscious weight. Carolina finally makes enough room and slides into the hole between tiles, begins to kick out sections of concrete and reaching over to give Caboose a shake.

“Carolina-”

“There’s no _time_ Church! Just keep those tiles up, I’ll get them out.”

“God damn it. _Fine._ ”

“I can- Okay! I can totally crawl! I’m used to being on my hands and knees.” And Donut hisses, pushing himself up onto his good knee and dragging himself forward on his elbow. His leg pulses blood and that does not make Carolina happy, but they don’t have a choice.

“Caboose,” she calls. He barely stirs and Carolina curses, pulling him off of Donut and yanking him up over her back. Her armor compensates for some of his weight and Carolina half-crawls along with Donut, elbowing concrete out of the way. There’s a truly alarming clatter and a cloud of dust puffs up and for a moment Carolina wonders if this is the end, but then her next punch strikes clear. She maneuvers Caboose's dead weight around and pushes him out through the hole, watching him tumble down the side of the debris hill before coming to an awkward stop near the edge of it, unmoving.

Carolina grabs hold of Donut and pulls him up over her back, crawls from the hole and Church drops the tiles just as they clear. The _crack_ of concrete crushing itself under its own weight shakes the air around her, knocks her off her feet and throws Donut from her grip.

Carolina scrambles down, reaches Caboose and pulls Donut down with her. She throws herself over their heads as debris goes cascading past them, gigantic stone chunks and steel rebars bouncing inches from their armor. Carolina tucks herself around the boys until she’s sure, until her heart stops hammering and the ground stops shaking, until Epsilon is seeping back into her implants.

_C- Sis, it’s all clear, you can let go._

No she can't, no she can't-

_Yes you can. You can let go._

She slowly, slowly pushes herself up onto her forearms. “Are you both all right?”

“That was _not_ fun,” Donut declares sluggishly. He drops his deathgrip on her armor and clamps his hand back over his profusely bleeding leg wound.

“Caboose?” When he doesn’t answer, Carolina grabs onto his shoulders and yanks wordlessly on Epsilon’s awareness. “ _Caboose._ ”

_I can’t pull up his biocomm, helmet's too damaged-_

Carolina finds the seals on Caboose’s helmet, tears it off and leans down her mic to his mouth.

_Fingers scrabbling uselessly against tiles-_

_He’s breathing._ Epsilon sounds as shaky as she feels and she wilts under the weight of their combined relief. _He’s okay. I think he’s okay. Probably has severe brain damage, but that’s nothing new._

“Don’t,” Carolina mutters, still clutching Caboose’s shoulders and trying to unsee _shattered visor, bloody throat_ so she can speak again.

“Aww, Carolina, he’s okay,” Donut tells her, and Carolina in her panic had almost forgotten he was there. She hurriedly slides off them both, but Donut just props himself up on an elbow like he didn’t even notice her embarrassment. “You know, I don’t think there’s anything in this galaxy that can kill Caboose! He just keeps on going.” He lays back with a sigh, helmet tapping against the debris. “But I’m _definitely_ gonna pass out soon, so I really hope evac gets here because some biofoam would sure hit the spot.”

Carolina unclips her healing unit and slots it into Donut’s armor. “Church-”

“Already here.” Church projects his avatar over Donut’s chest, outline fuzzy from residual dust scattering the light particles. “He’ll be fine.”

“I’m going to bake Caboose _so_ many artisanal vegan cupcakes for this,” Donut muses.

Carolina sprawls out on the debris beside Caboose, finds his hand and squeezes it. “I’ll help.”

“…um, no offense, but do you even know how to bake?”

“…alright, no. But I can learn.”

“I _guess_ so.”

“Wh- I _can._ ”

“Hey, no judgment, some people just aren’t cut out for the kitchen.”

 

* * *

 

Wash, Tucker and Sarge are already at the landing pad when their Pelican descends. Sarge is already reaching up to steady Donut before the Pelican finishes settling, pulling his weight onto his shoulders.

“Sarge, did you hear about-”

“Ahh, yes. Simmons is alive, but regrettably, Grif has also survived.”

“Oh! That's so great. I'm glad everyone's okay.” Donut leans on Sarge and Sarge hovers, just a little. Carolina watches them with a touch of envy that she convinces herself she's not really feeling before looking away to see Wash marching right over to the medics transferring Caboose to a hospital gurney. He reaches out without hesitation, rests a hand on Caboose's forehead and even in full armor, Carolina can see the worry seeping from his posture like a bleeding wound.

“Hey.”

She turns. Tucker is at her shoulder. “He's fine.”

“Yeah. I figured, y'know. You'd tell us if it was different.” Tucker sniffs and watches Wash stalk alongside the gurney.

Carolina hums.

Tucker slaps her on the shoulder and ignores her warning look. “Welcome back.” He follows after Washington, after his team, and Carolina feels both full and empty at his departure.

But then, as if summoned, Kimball appears at the edge of the landing pad, ascending the stairs and Carolina feels her heart thrum with the sound of something she's been missing for so long, she'd thought she'd just imagined it. Kimball comes over to her, stands a little closer than is professionally necessary, and says to her softly, “Good work out there.”

Carolina's heart beats and it sounds like _home, home, home._

 

* * *

 

Caboose is out of the hospital in a day, which is terrifying. What’s more terrifying is that he shows up the following morning to her quarters, dressed in his workout clothes, in his scrapes and bruises and medical tape. Carolina can’t be sure but she thinks he looks just a little older than before. She’d expected something different, maybe; some manic excitement over his successful mission, some yelling, some bone-crushing hugs that last way too long to be comfortable.

Instead he just looks at her expectantly, rocking back and forth on his heels and picking at a bandage.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, slipping out of her quarters. She’s dressed for her own PT because that’s how she unwinds, how she chills, how she chases the memories of bleeding friends out of her head. She runs it out. “You just got out of the hospital yesterday. You can take a few days off.”

“I want to train with you.”

“You should be resting.”

“But this is our time together. And we’re friends. And I want to spend time with you.” Caboose glances at her shyly before ducking his head down, picking at his nails. “I’m very happy training with you.”

“Oh,” Carolina says dumbly.

Caboose reaches out and takes her hand between his own, this weird thing where he presses their palms together and she thinks, remembers, _sweaty bread sandwich_. “Thank you very much, Agent Carolina,” he tells her, each word carefully enunciated, warm like his voice is a blanket she can wrap herself in.

 _No, thank_ _ **you,**_ she wants to say.

She remembers Wash staring at her with bruised, bloodshot eyes, croaking out, _You seem happier. Is it Caboose?_ She remembers Grif and Simmons waving beer cans in her direction and bickering over what actually _counts_ as a school dance, and what’s all ceremonial fluff. There’s Sarge pounding her heartily on the back, and Grey tapping a stylus against her tablet as she stares down at a collection of medical charts.

Kimball, her hands gripping tight in the dark.

 _It’s everything,_ she’d answered truthfully, because it is. It’s Donut telling her that her hair is just gorgeous, just _killer_ and asking if she’d be okay with a five-way French coil (whatever the fuck that is) for the dance that’s not even happening. It’s Tucker tossing her a bottle of armor touch-up paint and making fingerguns with a click of his tongue and, _Gotta keep the beautiful people beautiful._ It’s Doyle softly offering to see if a few servers can be scavenged for Epsilon’s own personal use, if he should ever need it.

Everything.

So when Caboose holds her hand, when he _thanks_ her for what she’d started just as a way to stroke her own ego, Carolina sees in him the echoes of herself: a lonely little girl vying desperately for attention, wheels spinning in the mud with no idea why she can’t find any traction.

And finally, _finally,_ Carolina knows just what to say.

“I’m so proud of you.”

She can keeps parts of her father with her, she thinks, but she can do so much more than he did, too. She can build. She can care. She can protect.

And she can give.

Everything she's been given, everything they've done for her-

“Agent Carolina, you are being so dramatic again.” Caboose rubs his pink cheeks and spins away from her, making their gesture for _let's go already._ “It was just a little building falling down.”

Carolina rolls her eyes and locks her door. “I'm sorry, _who_ is the one who fainted afterwards?”

“I was- I was just taking a nap! I have a very specific naptime!”

Carolina jogs after Caboose with a grin. “Uh huh.”

-she can give as much right back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU so much to everybody who stuck with me until the end!!!
> 
> PS- I absolutely drew the "Wash listens to the radio" thing from [saltsanford](http://archiveofourown.org/users/saltsanford/pseuds/saltsanford)'s series [Miles to Go](http://archiveofourown.org/series/399499). If you haven't read it yet for some reason, please love yourself and do it now


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